NCLT allows bankruptcy proceedings against Anil Ambani over Rs 1,200 crore debt to SBI

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) Mumbai on Friday gave approval to initiate bankruptcy proceedings against Anil Ambani over failure to repay debt. In 2016, State Bank of India (SBI) had given credit facilities to Reliance Communications and Reliance Infratel, part of Reliance ADAG group headed by Anil Ambani.

Ambani had offered about Rs 1,200 crore of personal guarantees while seeking loans in 2016 for now insolvent RCom and RITL. SBI had earlier moved the NCLT Mumbai to recover the given amount from Ambani under the personal guarantee clause of the bankruptcy law.

NCLT Mumbai has observed, "The RCOM and RITL committed default in repayment in and around January 2017. The accounts were retrospectively declared as Non-Performing Account (NPA) with effect from 26.08.2016 i.e. even before loan agreements had been entered into."

In early 2019, RCom had filed for bankruptcy after which its secured debt was estimated at nearly Rs 33,000 crore. However, its lenders had submitted claims of nearly Rs 49,000 crore in August 2019.

In March, SBI board had approved a resolution plan for RCom that envisaged lenders recovering around Rs 23,000 crore of their money, entailing a haircut of nearly 50 per cent.

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