Supreme Court Rejects Resuming Insolvency Case Against Anil Ambani

The Supreme Court Thursday dismissed a plea by State Bank of India seeking resumption of insolvency proceedings against the then chairman of Reliance Communications (RCom), Anil Ambani, to recover Rs 1,200 crore loan granted to his two firms. The top court refused to vacate the stay granted by the Delhi High Court by its interim order on the personal insolvency proceedings against Ambani.

Ambani had given personal guarantees for the SBI loans of Rs 565 crore and Rs 635 crore to RCom and Reliance Infratel Ltd (RITL) in August 2016. A bench of Justices L N Rao, Hemant Gupta and S Ravindra Bhatt asked the high court to take up the matter on October 6 and without any adjournment decide the case in view of the importance of the issue. The bench said SBI is at liberty to seek modification of stay order before the high court.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Ambani, contended that to declare a man bankrupt has serious consequences and opposed vacation of stay on insolvency process. On August 27, the high court had stayed the insolvency proceedings against Ambani in relation to recovery of Rs 1,200 crore loans given by SBI to his two firms.