New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday refused to interfere with the Bombay High Court’s judgment classifying loan accounts of Reliance Communications Group companies as “fraud”—thereby dismissing Anil Ambani’s petition seeking a stay on the high court order.
Importantly, after pronouncing the order, the court also recorded Anil Ambani’s statement that “he wished to settle the matter with the banks” (Bank of Baroda, Indian Overseas Bank and the IDBI Bank) made by his counsel senior advocate Kapil Sibal. Amidst vehement opposition from Solicitor General Tushar Mehta (appearing for the consortium of banks), the court did not express any opinion on it.
“You (banks) have settled with so many times, people sitting abroad have also settled,” Sibal said, adding that even though banks may not want to settle, he would like to put on record that Ambani wishes to settle with the banks.
Last month, Anil Ambani had written to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman seeking resolution of the cases against him on the same lines as was done for the Sandesara brothers in the Sterling Biotech case.
In the Sterling Biotech case, the Supreme Court had in November 2025 agreed to drop all criminal proceedings against the fugitive Sandesara brothers in a multi-crore bank fraud case if they deposited Rs 5,100 crore with the Supreme Court’s registry by 17 December 2025. In an extraordinary decision, it approved a structured institutional settlement and quashed cases against the company and its promoters.
In the present case against Anil Ambani, a bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi ultimately saw “no ground to interfere” with the Bombay High Court judgment which lifted the interim protection granted to Anil Ambani by a single judge bench of the high court and allowed the banks to proceed as per RBI rules. The SC bench also clarified that the Division Bench judgment has no bearing in the suit which is still pending and requested the high court to expedite the disposal of the civil suit.
The single judge order had restrained banks from acting on a 2020 forensic audit report (FAR) that examined the use of approximately Rs 31,580 crore advanced to Reliance Group entities. Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, and audit firm BDO India LLP then challenged the order.
Ambani’s move against the show-cause notice issued to him in 2024 aiming to classify Reliance Communications accounts as “fraud” based on a 2020 forensic audit claimed that he lacked access to documents due to the current insolvency proceedings.
In a detailed hearing on Thursday, the central question was, who can conduct financial audits.
“You cannot have a person who is a forensic service provider, who is not an auditor, and you cannot classify the account as fraud based on his report,” Sibal told the court, referring to the forensic investigator from the auditing and consultancy firm BDO India LLP who prepared the forensic audit report on Anil Ambani.
“He is not a chartered accountant (CA), he is himself saying that I am not a CA/auditor,” Sibal said adding that there was a “jurisdictional” issue, as the classification was not done on the basis of a forensic audit as mandated by the Companies Act.
The investigations against Ambani over siphoning of funds conducted by the CBI and ED are currently on and Sibal told the court that while the criminal investigation can go “in parallel”, the “fraud” classification should be set aside as there was no proper audit of accounts before the Reliance Group of companies were classified as “fraud”.
Sibal, arguing for Ambani, told the court that the “fraud” classification will amount to a virtual “civil death”, leading to nobody lending Ambani money.
Senior advocate Shyam Divan, also representing Anil Ambani, furthered the industrialist’s case by saying that the audit was not an audit meeting the statutory norms, as they are not qualified in terms of the RBI’s Master Directions 2024.
“When we see a scheme under our statutes, financial audit in our country can be done only by a CA. When you have enormous civil and criminal consequences, the particular forensic audit has to be done by a person who holds the qualifications,” he said.
According to the RBI’s 2024 Master Directions, the required qualification for an auditor to conduct an audit in such cases is that they must be a CA qualified to conduct an audit under “relevant statutes”.
Denying any relief, the CJI said, “Nationalised banks have engaged the services. They know the best person, can we substitute their wisdom? It is their money, which according to them has been siphoned off.”
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
Also read: ED, CBI crack whip on Anil Ambani: Questioning, raids & attachment of Mumbai home, all in 24 hours