GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 12th Oct: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday arrested Ashok Kumar Pal, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Reliance Power Limited and a close aide of Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani, in connection with a money laundering probe linked to a ₹68 crore fake bank guarantee scam. Pal was taken into custody under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
According to ED officials, Pal had submitted a bogus bank guarantee worth over ₹68 crore to the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a public sector enterprise under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. To make the fraudulent document appear legitimate, Pal allegedly used spoofed email domains resembling those of prominent Indian banks, including State Bank of India, Indian Bank, Punjab National Bank, and Union Bank of India, among others.
Investigators said the bank guarantee was purportedly issued by the “FirstRand Bank” in Manila, Philippines — a branch that does not exist. The probe also identified Biswal Tradelink, an Odisha-based firm, as a key player in the fraud. Operating from a residential address with no credible financial history, the firm was found to exist only on paper. Its director, Biswas Sarathi, was arrested in August for arranging the fake guarantees on behalf of Reliance Power.
Sources said the ED is probing whether Reliance Power executives knowingly used these fake documents for financial gain. The arrest of Pal follows a broader money laundering investigation into alleged financial irregularities across multiple Anil Ambani-led companies, including Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Communications.
The agency has accused Ambani’s group companies of loan diversions amounting to more than ₹17,000 crore. Of this, around ₹3,000 crore allegedly pertains to loans sanctioned by Yes Bank to group entities between 2017 and 2019. Another ₹14,000 crore is linked to suspected financial fraud at Reliance Communications.
Preliminary findings indicate that several loans were approved and disbursed on the same day applications were made, with funds routed through shell entities and accounts sharing common directors and addresses. The ED suspects cases of “loan evergreening” and non-compliance with due diligence norms by several banks.
Earlier in July, the agency had conducted raids at multiple locations in connection with the case. Recently, the ED also summoned Anil Ambani for questioning and sought records from over a dozen banks regarding their due diligence procedures for loans extended to Reliance Housing Finance, Reliance Commercial Finance, and Reliance Communications.
