Anil Ambani Bank Loan Sequence: The Indecency of Labelling Corporate Looting as Fraud !

On 30 June 2025, Anil Dhirubhai Ambani received a notice from the State Bank of India. The notice, prepared on 23 June 2025, was sent to convey the decision of the SBI to classify the loan account of Reliance Communications Ltd (R Com) as a fraud account and report the names of the company and its former director Anil Ambani to the RBI. Ambani's reply to the notice, delivered through his advocate, Tharuni Khurana, ends with these sentences. “The SBI has not given Ambani the opportunity of a personal hearing in the matter so that he could make a submission against the allegations. This is denial of natural justice”

In short, Ambani seems to be asking, "Is it fair to call me a fraud just because I looted public money!"

Canara Bank, another public sector bank, had marked R Com's account as fraudulent in November 2024. Strangely on 10 July 2025, just 18  days after the SBI also classified R Com as a fraudulent company, Canara Bank has submitted an affidavit in the court of law that it has removed the  fraudulent tag put earlier on Ambani's company.

Cheating of Unimaginable Magnitude that Puts even a Crime Novel to Shame
R Com and Reliance Infrastructure Ltd, the companies owned by Anil Ambani, took loans from the SBI and other domestic and international banks in the year 2015. The loans were fully disbursed in 2016. As usual, the largest chunk of the loan, amounting to ₹3628.68 crores, was provided by the SBI. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China came second, disbursing ₹1832.91crores. The long list of banks that extended loans to Ambani includes Canara Bank, Union Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, Subha Holdings, S C Lovi Asset Management, Doha Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Emirates Bank, China Development Bank, Export and Import Bank of China etc.

Ambani fooled these institutions and pocketed common people's deposit worth ₹48,216 crores. The banks declared this amount as NPA in 2020. Further, the SBI, having detected out of the way financial dealings of Ambani, labelled his company as a swindling firm in it's records on 10 November 2020.

The norms laid down by the RBI for identifying a fraudulent loan are misuse of loans, criminal betrayal of faith, misappropriation using fake financial instruments, swindling through manipulation of books of accounts, availing of illegal credit facilities, projecting artificial liquidity crisis, forging of records and unlawful dealings involving foreign currency.

As per the then prevailing regulations of the RBI, it was not easy to write off a fraudulent loan account or bringing it under the ambit of haircuts. However, the SBI, in a sudden move, revoked it's classification of Anil Ambani's Reliance Infratel, within 24 days, on 5 December 2020. The mandatory requirement of informing Central Repository of Information on Large Credits (CRILC)] of a fraudulent account was also not fulfilled. After the removal of the fraudulent tag, Reliance Infratel was put for auction under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. And Anil Ambani's elder brother Mukesh Ambani's Jio Infrastructure picked up Reliance Infratel in the auction. The banks got back only a negligible portion of their loans after a haircut of 99%.

Opportunity to Play the China Blame Game
As pointed out earlier, the companies of Anil Ambani had taken loans from three Chinese banks, namely the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Development Bank and the Exim Bank of China. When the loans turned NPAs, the Chinese banks filed cases in a UK court for recovery. Despite Anil Ambani presenting several arguments, the London court ordered payment of 717 million US dollars (around ₹5448 crore) to the three Chinese banks.

Following this, Anil Ambani appeared in the case through video conference and raised some strange arguments. He told the court that he is totally bankrupt and his expenses are being met by his wife and family. Ambani further said that he has taken loan running into crores of rupees from his son Anmol Ambani. He also claimed that  since he has sold all his ornaments for ₹9 crores for paying legal expenses nothing worthful is left with him.

In a dramatic twist in the case, the Delhi high court sent notices to the Chinese banks on 12 October 2020, seeking their opinion on a plea filed by Anil Ambani, for including these banks in his challenge to a separate bankruptcy case against him in India. This should be read along with the bankruptcy affidavit filed in India by Anil Ambani in 2019 in connection with the loans taken by the R Com. We will have to wait and see whether the Sangh Parivar patriots will come forward blaming communist China for the economic woes of Ambani, the Indian capitalist.

A close scrutiny of Ambani's arguments during the case filed in the London court by the Chinese banks and the events that followed -- the present action of the SBI to classify Ambani's loan account as fraudulent without hearing him and the sudden decision of the Canara bank to remove Ambani from the list of fraudsters -- raises the doubt whether these were pre-scripted and well planned dramas.

The Picture is Clear But Strange
Now let us examine the crux of the Anil Ambani loan saga.

2015: Anil Ambani's R Com and other companies receive loans from Indian and foreign banks.

September 2020: London court verdict in favour of Chinese banks.