ED Attaches ₹1,400-Cr Assets Of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group: What Has Been Seized So Far

The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday attached assets worth more than ₹1,400 crore belonging to the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group and its associated companies in the money-laundering probe linked to alleged loan fraud. The move comes just weeks after the agency’s earlier round of attachments across major Indian cities.

The latest seizure includes multiple properties spread across Navi Mumbai, Chennai, Pune and Bhubaneswar, collectively valued at about ₹1,452 crore.

Earlier, on November 3, the agency attached assets and properties worth around ₹7,500 crore. The latest action takes the total attachments in the case to nearly ₹9,000 crore.

In its initial order, the ED said it had provisionally attached 42 properties worth over ₹3,083 crore belonging to entities linked to the Reliance Anil Ambani Group. These included a residence at Pali Hill in Mumbai, the Reliance Centre in New Delhi, and multiple office spaces, residential units and land parcels across Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Hyderabad, Chennai (including Kancheepuram) and East Godavari. The total value of these assets was about ₹3,084 crore.

The agency later attached more than 132 acres of land in Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC) in Navi Mumbai, worth ₹4,462.81 crore, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Which Reliance Firms are under ED probe?

According to the agency, Reliance Communications and its group companies availed loans from domestic and foreign lenders between 2010 and 2012, with total outstanding dues of ₹40,185 crore. Five banks have labelled these loan accounts as fraudulent.

The ED alleges that loans taken by one entity were diverted to repay loans of other group entities, transferred to related parties or invested in mutual funds—actions that violated loan sanction conditions.

It further claims that Reliance Communications and its group firms diverted more than ₹13,600 crore for evergreening of loans, over ₹12,600 crore to connected parties, and more than ₹1,800 crore into fixed deposits and mutual funds, much of which was later liquidated and rerouted to group entities.

The investigation has reportedly uncovered large-scale diversion of public funds by several group companies, including Reliance Communications, Reliance Home Finance, Reliance Commercial Finance, Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Power.

The probe began after the Central Bureau of Investigation registered an FIR under sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act against Reliance Communications, Anil Ambani and others for alleged criminal conspiracy, cheating and corruption.

Between 2017 and 2019, Yes Bank invested ₹2,965 crore in Reliance Home Finance Limited (RHFL) instruments and ₹2,045 crore in Reliance Commercial Finance Limited (RCFL) instruments, all of which became non-performing by December 2019. ED’s investigation found that RHFL and RCFL received more than ₹10,000 crore in public funds, much of it routed indirectly through Yes Bank.

Since Reliance Nippon Mutual Fund was barred under Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) rules from investing directly in Anil Ambani Group finance companies, public money from its schemes was channelled through Yes Bank before reaching these entities.

RHFL and RCFL had borrowings from more than 35 banks and financial institutions, much of which was neither repaid nor used for the stated purpose. Instead, large sums were allegedly diverted through onward lending to group firms and routed via multiple shell companies controlled by the Reliance Anil Ambani Group, using corporate loans and inter-corporate deposits to move funds in a circular manner, the ED claims.