The Supreme Court on Friday asked the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to file status reports in a sealed cover within ten days on their ongoing investigations into alleged massive banking and corporate fraud involving the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) and its group companies.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi also issued fresh notices to Anil Ambani and the ADAG on a PIL seeking a court-monitored probe into the alleged fraud.
It took note of the fact that Anil Ambani and the ADAG had already been served with the notices of the PIL filed by the petitioner and former Union secretary E A S Sarma.
On November 18, the bench issued notices to the Centre, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), ED, Anil Ambani and ADAG on the PIL.
The bench, however, said it was granting them one last opportunity to appear and file their responses in the case.
The bench asked the Bombay High Court's Registrar General to ensure service of notices on Anil Ambani and the ADAG and file a compliance report.
The top court asked the CBI and the ED, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, to file status reports in a sealed cover in ten days on their ongoing probes into the alleged fraud.
During the brief hearing, lawyer Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the PIL petitioner, alleged that more than Rs 1.50 lakh crore of debt of these companies has been written off, and the money was siphoned off through many shell companies.
He said this was the "largest bank loan fraud in the country".
Bhushan said the company and Ambani have not entered an appearance before this court despite being aware of the fact that "this was highly reported in the media, it's not that they do not know, they are watching".
The solicitor general said that he was not opposing Bhushan and an FIR was lodged pursuant to a forensic audit conducted by the State Bank of India (SBI).
Earlier, Bhushan alleged that the probe agencies are not investigating the alleged complicity of banks and their officials in the huge banking fraud.
He sought a direction to the CBI and the ED to file respective status reports with regard to the probe against banks and their officials in the case.
Bhushan said the instant case is "probably the largest corporate fraud in India's history".
The FIR was registered in 2025 though the fraud was going on since 2007-08, the lawyer alleged.
The PIL alleged systematic diversion of public funds, fabrication of financial statements and institutional complicity across multiple entities of the Anil Ambani-led Reliance ADAG.
It said the FIR registered by the CBI on August 21, along with the connected ED proceedings, addresses merely a small segment of the alleged fraud.
The petition claimed that despite detailed forensic audits flagging serious irregularities, neither agency is probing the role of bank officials, auditors or regulators, which the petitioner called a critical failure.
Issue a Writ of Mandamus or direction for a court-monitored investigation by the CBI and the ED to conduct a thorough, impartial and time-bound investigation into the financial fraud perpetrated by Respondent No. 4 (Anil Ambani) and Respondent No. 5 (ADAG)," the plea said.
It also sought a direction to the respondents for the constitution of a special investigation team (SIT) comprising officers from the CBI and the ED to conduct a thorough, impartial and time-bound investigation.
Issue appropriate writ or direction that the investigation into the affairs of ADAG, its promoters/ directors and connected entities be monitored by this honourable court so as to ensure that the probe is fair, independent, comprehensive and free from any external influence, and that no aspect of the financial or criminal misconduct revealed in the forensic and audit reports is left outside the scope of inquiry, it said.
The plea also sought a comprehensive, coordinated and judicially supervised probe, asserting that the ongoing investigations by the CBI and the ED were inadequate and deliberately restricted to a narrow FIR filed by the SBI in August 2025.
It said between 2013 and 2017, RCOM, Reliance Infratel (RITL) and Reliance Telecom (RTL) borrowed Rs 31,580 crore from a consortium of banks led by the SBI.
The SBI lodged the FIR on August 21, alleging criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust and misconduct involving an alleged loss of Rs 2,929.05 crore, it said.
The plea said the FIR was based on a forensic audit commissioned in 2019, covering suspicious fund flows, diversion of bank loans, fictitious transactions and the alleged use of shell companies.
The investigating agencies, in the present matter, have overlooked the five-year delay in filing the FIR by the bank, which clearly indicates involvement of bank officials and other public servants whose conduct enabled, concealed or facilitated the fraud, it said.
The CBI and the ED have entirely failed to investigate this institutional angle, and excluded from scrutiny the very public officials whose complicity or willful inaction forms an essential part of the criminal conspiracy, it said.
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