New Delhi, Oct 11: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Ashok Pal, Chief Financial Officer of industrialist Anil Ambani’s Reliance Power, in connection with a money laundering case involving a fake bank guarantee worth ₹68 crore, official sources said on Saturday.
Pal was taken into custody on Friday night under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after detailed questioning by the agency. He will be produced before a special court, where the ED is likely to seek his custodial remand, the sources added.
The case concerns a ₹68.2 crore bank guarantee submitted to the Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECI) on behalf of Reliance NU BESS Limited, a subsidiary of Reliance Power, which was later found to be forged. The company, formerly known as Maharashtra Energy Generation Limited, had reportedly obtained the fake guarantee from Odisha-based Biswal Tradelink.
According to the ED, Biswal Tradelink operated a racket supplying fake bank guarantees for various firms against a commission of 8 per cent. The agency earlier arrested the company’s Managing Director, Partha Sarathi Biswal, following raids in August.
The probe stems from a November 2024 FIR by Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW), which alleged the use of a fake email domain — s-bi.co.in — resembling the State Bank of India’s domain to mislead SECI. Investigators found that the accused firm also issued forged documents and operated multiple undisclosed bank accounts for routing suspicious transactions worth crores.
Reliance Power has maintained that it is a “victim of fraud, forgery and cheating conspiracy” and had filed a criminal complaint against the third party with Delhi Police’s EOW in October 2024. (Agencies)
