The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has intensified its money laundering investigation into an alleged fake bank guarantee case linked to Reliance Power’s subsidiary, making a third significant arrest. The ongoing probe, which revolves around an alleged fraudulent bank guarantee of over ₹68 crore, has now brought a Kolkata-based man, Amar Nath Dutta, into the custody of the federal agency.
Dutta's arrest on Thursday (November 6, 2025), under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), comes following the earlier arrests of former Reliance Power Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Ashok Kumar Pal and Partha Sarathi Biswal, the Managing Director of an Odisha-based company, Biswal Tradelink. A special court has remanded Dutta to ED custody, highlighting the serious nature of his alleged involvement.
The Anatomy of the Alleged Fraud
The investigation centres on a bank guarantee valued at ₹68.2 crore that was submitted to the Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECI) on behalf of Reliance NU BESS Limited (formerly known as Maharashtra Energy Generation Limited), a subsidiary of Reliance Power. According to the ED, this guarantee was later discovered to be "fake." The submission of this fraudulent guarantee allegedly caused a loss of over ₹100 crore to SECI, a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
The probe has revealed a sophisticated racket allegedly operated by Biswal Tradelink, which specialized in providing “fake” bank guarantees to various business groups for a commission. The ED claims that Amar Nath Dutta, a resident of Kolkata who purportedly offered consultancy services in trade financing, played an "active role" in coordinating the provision of these bogus guarantees alongside Pal and Biswal.
Investigators have uncovered that the scheme was elaborate, involving the use of spoofed email domains—such as "s-bi.co.in" instead of the genuine "sbi.co.in"—to create a facade of legitimacy and mislead SECI into accepting the fabricated documents as genuine State Bank of India endorsements. Furthermore, some guarantees were falsely purported to be from foreign bank branches that did not exist.
Reliance Group's Stance
While the investigation draws the spotlight back onto the Anil Ambani group, the Reliance Group has sought to distance itself from the proceedings. A statement from the group clarified that Anil Ambani has "not been on the Board of Reliance Power Limited for more than 3.5 years and is not concerned with this matter in any manner."
Reliance Power, through an exchange filing, has maintained that the company and its subsidiary, Reliance NU BESS Ltd., are themselves "victims of fraud, forgery and cheating conspiracy," and that their employees acted bonafide in the matter.
Deepening the PMLA Probe
The ED’s action, which stems from a November 2024 FIR filed by the Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW), underscores the agency's resolve to unravel the entire money laundering trail. With three key arrests now secured—the former CFO who allegedly approved and executed the documents, the MD of the firm that provided the fake guarantees, and a consultant accused of playing an active role—the ED is moving closer to identifying the ultimate beneficiaries of the proceeds of the crime and tracing the final end-use of the illicit funds.
The custodial remand of Amar Nath Dutta until November 10 is expected to facilitate further interrogations and document verification, as the investigation continues to unfold the full extent of this complex financial conspiracy.
