SC seeks status reports in alleged ADAG banking fraud case
The Supreme Court on Friday issued fresh notices to Anil Ambani and the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) on a PIL seeking a court-monitored probe into alleged massive banking and corporate fraud involving the firm and its group companies. The top court asked the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, to file status reports in sealed cover in ten days on their ongoing probes into the alleged fraud.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi 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, last year, the bench issued notices to the Centre, CBI, ED, Anil Ambani, and ADAG on the PIL. The bench said it was granting the last opportunity to Anil Ambani and the ADAG 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 bench then fixed the plea for hearing after 10 days.
Earlier, the bench took note of the submissions made by lawyer Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner Sarma, and sought the replies of the parties. Within three weeks. The bench posted the PIL for further hearing after three weeks.
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 Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to file respective status reports with regard to the probe against banks and their officials in the case.
“More than 1.5 lakh crores of debt have been written off. The web of transactions is so fraudulent. The Bank of Baroda (BOB) and the CBI registered an FIR in June 2025 based on an audit report that the BOB had received in 2020. Even in the FIR, they have not named any public servant. The banks from whom loans were taken and siphoned out, this was detected by BOB in early 2020 itself! The first thing that is needed is for the CBI and ED to file their status report saying what they done until now,” argued Bhushan.
Bhushan submitted that the instant case is “probably the largest corporate fraud in India’s history”. The FIR was registered in 2025, though the fraud had been going on since 2007-08, the lawyer alleged. “We want a status report from the ED and the CBI on what they are investigating. Clearly, they are not probing the collusion by the banks,” he said.
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.
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