The Supreme Court on Thursday found no ground to interfere with a Bombay High Court verdict of February 23 which opened the door wide for fraud classification proceedings to continue against Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) founder Anil Ambani.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant did not intervene against the Division Bench decision to set aside a Single Judge order of December last year, which had stalled the proceedings.
The apex court, however, said observations made by the Division Bench would not affect the merits of the civil suit filed by Ambani challenging the qualifications of the forensic auditor, an entity called BDO India LLP, and its forensic audit report (FAR) of October 2020.
The businessman has argued that the signatory to the FAR was not a qualified chartered accountant.
Civil suit
The top court gave Ambani liberty to pursue the civil suit and any other remedy available to him.
Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Shyam Divan urged the court to record their statement that Ambani, their client, was willing to “sit with the banks and settle”.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the consortium of creditors of public sector banks, said a recording of such a statement by the court would have “repercussions”, especially when separate criminal proceedings were underway in the case.
“They (banks) have settled so many accounts with people sitting abroad… You should not be a stumbling block to a settlement,” Sibal submitted.
Mehta said such a statement may tend to influence other courts and fora. The court had already said “all remedies are open”.
The court finally recorded Sibal’s statement that his client wanted to settle, but said it did not want to express any opinion on it.
The hearings were based on separate appeals filed by Ambani against the February 2026 judgment which allowed Bank of Baroda, Indian Overseas Bank and IDBI Bank to classify his loan accounts as “fraudulent” in terms of the Reserve Bank of India’s 2024 Master Directions.