State Bank of India has decided to classify the loan account of beleaguered telecom firm Reliance Communications as "fraud" and to report the name of its erstwhile director -- Anil Ambani to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), according to a regulatory filing.
Reliance Communications in a regulatory filing said that it has received a letter dated June 23, 2025 from the State Bank of India (SBI) to this effect.
Reliance Communications is part of the group led by Anil Ambani, the brother of billionaire and one of Asia's richest men, Mukesh Ambani, who chairs the oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Reliance Industries. Reliance Communications disclosed in April that as of March 2025 it had a total debt of 404 billion rupees ($4.71 billion).
According to the filing, Reliance Communications and its subsidiaries received a total loan of Rs 31,580 crore from banks.
The Fraud Identification Committee of the bank has found deviation in utilization of the loans.
The letter marked to Reliance Communications and its erstwhile director Anil Ambani stated that SBI has decided to report the loan account of the company as "fraud" and to report the name of Anil Ambani to the RBI, as per the extant RBI guidelines, the filing said.
The bank said it gave Anil Ambani and the company several chances in the past two years to respond to the allegations of fraud in loans taken out in 2016 from Indian banks that were subsequently classified as bad or non-performing, but found their replies "insufficient".
SBI and Anil Ambani did not immediately respond to Reuters' emailed requests for comment.
Under Indian banking laws once an account is reported as fraudulent it is referred to enforcement agencies for criminal action and the borrower is barred from securing any more finance from banks and other regulated financial institutions for an initial period of five years.
Reliance Communications said in the filing the insolvency proceedings protect it from any orders by any other authority and court of law.
"Legal advice is being sought on the way forward with respect to this development," the company said.