In a partial 'relief' for Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani, the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has put a conditional stay on the Rs 25 crore penalty imposed on him. The former billionaire was fined by Sebi in August this year over his alleged involvement in the Reliance Home Finance Ltd (RHFL) fund-diversion case.
The SAT bench has directed Ambani to deposit 50 per cent of the Rs 25 crore penalty within four weeks or one month. The decision came in response to Ambani's appeal against Sebi's August 22 ruling in the case. The market regulator had barred Anil Ambani and 24 other entities, including former key officials of Reliance Home Finance, from the securities market for five years for diversion of funds from RHFL.
The regulator also barred RHFL from the securities market for six months and slapped a fine of Rs 6 lakh on it. In its 222-page final order, Sebi found that Ambani, with the help of RHFL’s key managerial personnel, had orchestrated a fraudulent scheme to siphon-off funds from RHFL by disguising them as loans to entities linked to him.
Although the Board of Directors of RHFL had issued strong directives to stop such lending practices and reviewed corporate loans regularly, the company’s management ignored these orders. Ambani used his position as ‘chairperson of the ADA group’ and his significant indirect shareholding in the holding company of RHFL to orchestrate the fraud.
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