HC asks SBI to maintain status quo on accounts of Anil Ambani's firms RCom, Reliance Telecom, Infratel

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has directed State Bank of India (SBI) to maintain a status quo on bank accounts of Anil Ambani’s bankrupt telco Reliance Communications and its units—Reliance Telecom and Reliance Infratel—which were classified as fraudulent.
Justice Prateek Jalan on Wednesday passed the order to "maintain status quo till next date of hearing" with regard to the accounts of the three companies, in view of protection given by the high court in similar previous matters. The matter is listed for hearing on January 13.

The erstwhile directors of the three companies had filed a plea challenging a 2016 circular of the Reserve Bank of India regarding declaration of accounts as fraud by banks.

According to the plea, the circular allows banks to declare an account as fraud without giving any prior notice or communication to the account holder against the principles of natural justice.

ET had reported last week that the telco’s lenders—SBI, UBI and Indian Overseas Bank—have classified RCom’s accounts as frauds after a forensic audit unearthed questionable transactions worth ?5,500 crore in the three companies.

The probe into transactions between May 2017 and March 2018 found three large entries buried under hundreds of thousands of others that the SBI-led consortium suspects could conceal fund diversion.