CBI arresting only ADAG officials and not kingpin: Petitioner in Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: A PIL petitioner, on whose plea Supreme Court directed CBI and ED to probe the alleged siphoning of 40,000 crore from bank loans by various Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) companies, on Thursday complained to SC that the agencies have only been arresting officials of the beleaguered corporate and not the kingpin.

After advocate Prashant Bhushan’s complaint, solicitor general Tushar Mehta said CBI could not complete probe within four weeks as promised earlier because of discovery of certain new facts and dimensions in the case and handed over the probe status reports by the CBI and ED to a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice J Bagchi.

“I will not be able to respond to the allegation as to why some are arrested and why not others,” Mehta said.

The bench, which had on March 23 expressed displeasure over the perceptible reluctance on the part of probe agencies to proceed against ADAG group companies, said it would pass further orders after going through the status reports and posted the matter for further hearing on May 8.

During the last hearing, Anil Ambani’s counsel Mukul Rohatgi had said that ADAG is ready to discuss with banks and financial institutions about settlement of dues.

On Thursday, senior advocate Kapil Sibal appeared for him and told the bench that the court needed to know the background of the case, which is crucial.

Taking a cue from the subject matter of the PIL, which alleged that huge amounts were taken by ADAG companies as loans from banks and then insolvency proceedings were initiated to enable these companies to be taken over for a song by relatives, advocate Prabhas Bajaj said such a scam is all pervasive in insolvency proceedings.

When he cited an example of solvent companies being taken over cheaply by other companies through insolvency proceedings causing huge loss to the banks, the bench said it would not go into individual cases.

“Our effort is to dispel the impression that big players, involved in such cases, get away lightly,” it said.

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