Ambani’s options include appealing the stock market regulator’s order before the Securities Appellate Tribunal.
The businessman resigned from the board of Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Power following Sebi’s interim order dated February 11, 2022 in the Reliance Home Finance matter and has been adhering to the order for the last two and a half years, the spokesperson said.
Reliance Power and Reliance Infrastructure are not parties to the proceedings before the Sebi in which the current order was passed and, therefore, have no influence over the business and affairs of these companies. Apart from barring him from accessing capital markets, the Sebi has also barred Anil Ambani from holding any key management or directorship in any listed company or market facilitator for five years and imposed a fine of Rs 25 crore on him.
RHFL was then a subsidiary of Reliance Capital, one of India’s first financial companies to file for insolvency before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). Reliance Home Finance was sold in an out-of-court settlement and is now part of Sanjay Dangi’s Authum Investment and Infrastructure.
The Sebi investigation uncovered a complex scheme in which Reliance Home Finance disbursed loans totalling Rs 9,295.25 crore to 45 general working capital (GPC) credit companies. Of this, Rs 4,944.34 crore was disbursed to 13 specific GPC borrowers, who lent another Rs 4,013.43 crore to nine companies associated with the promoter. In FY19, Reliance Home Finance had sanctioned and disbursed a number of large GPC loans totalling several thousand crores of rupees to unknown borrowers with extremely weak financial positions. “The mastermind of the fraudulent scheme is ADAG chairman Anil Ambani,” said senior Sebi member Ananth Narayan in his order.
