NEW DELHI: Enforcement Directorate on Thursday arrested Amar Nath Dutta, a Kolkata-based consultant who was allegedly involved with Reliance Power’s former CFO Ashok Pal in furnishing bogus bank guarantee of over Rs 68 crore provided by Reliance NU BESS to Solar Energy Corporation of India for issue of tender. Dutta, who claims to provide consultancy services in trade financing, has been remanded to ED custody for four days by a special court here for further questioning. This is the third arrest in this case. Earlier, Pal and Partha Sarathi Biswal, MD, Biswal Tradelink, were held. The latest action came exactly a week before Anil Ambani‘s questioning on Nov 14 in ED’s investigation against him and his Reliance group entities. tnn

Anil Ambani is facing Enforcement Directorate investigation in two money laundering cases related to alleged bank frauds and other charges of conspiracy. He was examined by the agency earlier on August 5 and last week, ED attached assets of Ambani and his other Reliance entities worth over Rs 7,500 crore. In this case, the bank guarantee had forged endorsements and fake SFMS confirmations from Reliance Power subsidiary to SECI, ED said. “Investigation is continuing into various aspects, including identification of beneficiaries of proceeds of crime, tracing of end-use of funds, assets acquired from crime proceeds and examination of the larger conspiracy and roles of additional persons and entities,” the probe agency said. “The SECI – a public sector undertaking under the Union ministry of new and renewable energy – has suffered loss of over Rs 100 crore due to fraudulent bank guarantee submission by Reliance Power subsidiary,” the enforcement agency claimed. Enforcement Directorate’s money laundering probe is based on an FIR filed by the SECI with the economic offence wing of Delhi Police. Reliance Power, a listed company, and its top executives are accused of alleged diversion of funds. “Board resolution empowered Pal and others to finalise, approve, sign and execute all documents for Solar Energy Corporation of India’s tender, and to use RPL’s financial capability for the bid,” agency sources said. On August 1, ED had conducted searches at three premises in Bhubaneswar and one at Kolkata after its investigators found alleged evidence of fake bank guarantee, generated by a shell entity registered at Bhubaneswar. Spoofed email accounts were allegedly created to make the guarantees look genuine.