The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has lodged a chargesheet against Reliance Power Limited, a company owned by Anil Ambani, and its affiliated entities for allegedly presenting counterfeit bank guarantees to the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) in connection with a significant energy storage project. SECI is a government-controlled entity under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
The chargesheet originates from the ED’s investigation into complaints filed by the Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW), including one filed by SECI against Reliance NU BESS Limited, a subsidiary of Reliance Power, and another filed by Reliance NU BESS against Biswal Tradelink Private Limited based in Odisha and its managing director, Partha Sarathi Biswal.
Reliance NU BESS participated in a bid for SECI’s tender to establish 1000 MW/2000 MWh standalone Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) projects, necessitating a bank guarantee of Rs 68.2 crore. However, the ED uncovered that Reliance Power, allegedly acting in bad faith, engaged Biswal Tradelink to obtain a fraudulent bank guarantee from non-existent entities and fabricated endorsements using a counterfeit SBI email and false letters.
To fund the scheme, Reliance Power supposedly transferred Rs 6.33 crore from Rosa Power Supply Company Limited to Biswal Tradelink under the guise of non-existent transportation services. Fake work orders and invoices were reportedly concocted by Reliance Group officials in cahoots with Biswal. Additionally, Reliance Power purportedly paid Rs 5.40 crore to Biswal Tradelink under the pretense of a fee to lend legitimacy to the arrangement.
According to the ED, senior officials at Reliance Group were allegedly complicit in submitting the forged bank guarantee to SECI and attempted various maneuvers to rectify the situation, including securing a genuine guarantee from IDBI Bank post the fraud detection by SECI. Despite these efforts, SECI declined the late submission. Subsequently, Reliance NU BESS, as the L-2 bidder, endeavored to obtain a fresh endorsement of the counterfeit foreign guarantee from an SBI branch in Kolkata, resorting to falsifying documents in the process.
In response to these failed attempts, Reliance lodged a complaint against Biswal Tradelink and its MD, a move perceived by the ED as an effort to shift blame to the intermediary. The CFO of Reliance Power, Ashok Kumar Pal, has been arrested alongside other accomplices and is currently in judicial custody. Before filing the chargesheet, the ED seized proceeds of crime amounting to Rs 5.15 crore in connection to the case.
The case is now under the jurisdiction of the special PMLA court, where further legal proceedings will determine the liability of the entities and individuals implicated in the matter.