A few days back, Reliance Jio had gone to the bankruptcy court for wanting access to the audit report of Reliance Infratel and RCom. This is because the State Bank of India (SBI) had marked both the companies as ‘fraud’. But after seeing Jio asking questions, the SBI has taken a step back and is withdrawing its allegations of fraud against the concerned companies. According to an ET Telecom report, SBI will submit a petition to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for ending the matter. SBI felt threatened after Reliance Jio started questioning the bank’s allegations, but there is a good reason why.
SBI Feared Jio’s Back Out From Resolution Plans
SBI rushed to file the affidavit because it feared that Jio might back out from its resolution plans for Infratel. For the unaware, Jio has plans of buying Infratel for Rs 4,000 crore. In case Jio backs out of its plan, the money lenders to Infratel will suffer a huge blow. To help lenders recover at least some part of their money, SBI is withdrawing its allegations from the NCLT via an affidavit. Going by the statements of people who were aware of the matter, the fear of the sole buyer backing out because the findings of the forensic report couldn’t be presented in time could have been catastrophic for the money lenders. It is worth noting that NCLT has already given its approval for the resolution plans of the company. Jio had requested the bankruptcy court for seeing the audit that was done by the three Indian banks, including SBI, Indian Overseas Bank, and the Union Bank of India. The banks had discovered unusual transactions of Rs 5,500 crore in the three companies of Anil Ambani. Jio asked the court that if the banks had discovered the unusual transactions back in October 2020, why didn’t they come out with the information sooner. If the resolution process gets delayed further, SBI would be the most hurt since it had loaned over Rs 12,000 crore to bankrupt telcos, including RCom and Aircel. The court had asked Jio to furnish a copy of its application to all the concerned companies/parties, including the Committee of Creditors (CoC). The next hearing on the matter is scheduled for today.
