The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a fresh FIR against Reliance Communications Limited, its former chairman Anil Ambani, former director Manjari Ashok Kacker, and others in connection with an alleged bank loan fraud involving Punjab National Bank and the erstwhile United Bank of India, which has since been merged with PNB. The alleged loss to the banks is over Rs 1,085 crore, arising from loans sanctioned and allegedly misused between April 2013 and March 2017.
The fresh FIR adds a new and significant chapter to what has become an accelerating pattern of CBI investigations into RCom’s alleged financial misconduct during the mid-2010s, a period when the company was aggressively borrowing from multiple public sector banks to fund its telecom operations before its eventual collapse into insolvency.
What the Fresh FIR Alleges
The CBI’s latest FIR alleges that the accused entered into a criminal conspiracy and cheated Punjab National Bank and the United Bank of India by dishonestly inducing them to provide credit facilities. The alleged methods of fraud include diversion and misutilisation of loan funds through fictitious transactions, related-party dealings, and use of funds for purposes other than those sanctioned by the lending banks. These are the standard allegations in large corporate bank fraud cases of this type, where companies allegedly draw down loans for specific stated purposes and then route the money through group entities, inter-corporate loans, or other mechanisms that effectively remove the funds from the sanctioned purpose while leaving the bank exposed to the full credit risk.
The alleged wrongful loss to the banks exceeds Rs 1,085 crore across the PNB and former United Bank of India exposure combined.
The Pattern of Escalating CBI Action
The timing of this fresh FIR reveals an acceleration in the CBI’s investigation pace against RCom and Ambani. In late February 2026, the CBI filed another FIR based on a Bank of Baroda complaint, alleging a substantially larger fraud of over Rs 2,220 crore involving similar allegations of fund diversion and misuse during the same 2013 to 2017 period. Separately, Ambani has been questioned multiple times in an SBI-linked case involving approximately Rs 2,929 crore.
The cumulative picture across these three investigation streams is striking. The PNB and United Bank of India case now involves Rs 1,085 crore. The Bank of Baroda case involves Rs 2,220 crore. The SBI-linked case involves approximately Rs 2,929 crore. The combined alleged fraud quantum across these three sets of investigations exceeds Rs 6,200 crore, representing multiple CBI FIRs against the same accused company and its former chairman across different lending banks within a concentrated period of investigation activity.
The CBI has conducted searches at Ambani’s residence and at RCom offices in connection with related probes, and Ambani has been questioned on multiple occasions.
The Background — How RCom Reached This Point
Reliance Communications was once one of India’s largest telecom operators, founded by Anil Ambani after the split of the Reliance group between him and his brother Mukesh Ambani following Dhirubhai Ambani’s death. The company was built on aggressive borrowing at a time when India’s telecom sector was expanding rapidly and valuations were high.
The competitive dynamics of Indian telecom changed dramatically from 2016 onward with the entry of Reliance Jio, Mukesh Ambani’s telecom venture, which disrupted the industry with free voice calls and deeply subsidised data, forcing all competitors to respond to price compression that their balance sheets, particularly the heavily leveraged ones like RCom’s, could not sustain. RCom’s revenues collapsed as subscriber numbers fell and the company found itself unable to service its enormous debt burden.
RCom filed for insolvency in 2019 and the company has been through extended insolvency resolution proceedings since then. Banks, which had extended credit during the aggressive expansion phase of 2013 to 2017, found their loans turning into non-performing assets and have been pursuing recovery through multiple channels including the insolvency process and, now increasingly, CBI complaints alleging that the loans were not merely bad business decisions but fraudulent from inception.
The CBI’s current investigation wave focuses specifically on whether RCom’s borrowings from public sector banks during the 2013 to 2017 period involved deliberate misrepresentation of purpose, fund diversion through group entities, and other elements that would constitute criminal fraud rather than commercial failure.
What Remains Pending
As of early April 2026, no final chargesheet or conviction has been reported in connection with these specific fresh FIRs. The CBI investigations are ongoing. Anil Ambani and the other named accused have not been convicted in any of these specific cases. The FIR stage of an investigation is the registration of a complaint and the commencement of formal inquiry, not a finding of guilt. These are ongoing investigations and all allegations remain subject to the judicial process.
The cases are part of a broader scrutiny of telecom sector lending from the 2013 to 2017 era, a period when multiple public sector banks extended large credit facilities to telecom companies on the basis of business projections that the subsequent competitive disruption rendered unachievable. The regulatory and investigative question being examined across multiple cases is where the line falls between commercial miscalculation and criminal fraud.
For RCom and Anil Ambani, the fresh PNB FIR means that the investigative pressure, which has been building across multiple banking relationships and multiple CBI cases in the past several weeks, has added another formal investigation thread to an already substantial legal challenge.
This article is based on publicly reported information from The Hindu, Times Now, Business Standard, and Economic Times on the CBI FIR against Reliance Communications Limited and Anil Ambani. All allegations are at the FIR and investigation stage. No chargesheet or conviction has been reported in these specific cases. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice.