NCLT adjourns Jio's petition seeking RCom's forensic audit reports

Lenders awaiting RCom's debt resolution since May 2018

The National Company Law Tribunal has adjourned a petition filed by a Reliance Jio subsidiary seeking forensic audits of Reliance Communications and Reliance Infratel from the lenders.

The court will hear the matter again on March 7.

Reliance Projects and Properties, a Reliance Jio subsidiary, had won the race to acquire Reliance Infratel in December 2020, but has moved the court asking India’s largest lender State Bank of India to hand over forensic audits which declared Reliance Communications and its subsidiary as a fraud account. Reliance Projects had won the mandate to buy RCom’s tower and fiber assets for Rs 4,400 crore in December 2020.  

Reliance Jio, a Mukesh Ambani-owned company, is arguing that it wants to know the fate of its acquisition in view of new facts that the SBI had a forensic audit on the company when the bidding process was on but did not share it with the bidders. 

In May 2018, Indian lenders had referred Reliance Communications and its subsidiaries to the bankruptcy court after the company failed to repay its dues worth Rs 46,000 crore. While UV ARC had won the race to acquire Reliance Communications in March 2020, Jio bid the highest for its tower assets. But since then RCom's resolution is pending in various courts. The acquisition by UV ARC is pending in Delhi High Court over payment of government dues after the Department of Telecom sought its dues first.

A source said Reliance Infratel's resolution plan was approved by the NCLT almost 14 months ago but the process has not yet closed due to the litigation between Reliance Jio and the SBI. While Reliance Jio continues to use the tower and fibre assets of RITL, the lenders are awaiting fate of their dues since the company was sent to the bankruptcy court.

According to a banker, lenders have suffered a loss of Rs 300 crore in the last 14 months even as their capital remained blocked.