NEW DELHI: Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani has offered to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) through virtual means following a summons issued to him under FEMA for Friday.A statement issued by a spokesperson of the 66-year-old businessman said he has written to the federal probe agency, assuring full cooperation in the probe being conducted under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).ED sources said they have turned down Ambani’s request to appear virtually and are expected to issue him a new date for deposition soon. According to the agency, Ambani had been asked to appear in person on Friday to record his statement under FEMA.The investigation pertains to the Jaipur-Reengus Highway Project.The ED had said in a statement, after recently attaching assets worth Rs 7,500 crore of Ambani and his companies under the anti-money laundering law, that a search action carried out under FEMA against R-Infra found that an alleged Rs 40 crore was siphoned from the highway project.Funds reportedly moved through Surat-based shell companies to Dubai. The trail has allegedly unearthed a wider international hawala network exceeding Rs 600 crore, the agency said.The ED has recorded the statements of various persons, including some alleged hawala dealers, following which they decided to summon Ambani, the sources said.Hawala refers to the illegal movement of funds, largely in cash.According to Ambani’s spokesperson, the FEMA case is 15 years old, dating back to 2010, and concerns issues associated with a road contractor.In 2010, Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. awarded an EPC contract for the construction of the JR Toll Road (Jaipur-Ringus Highway).The spokesperson said this was a purely domestic contract with no foreign exchange component involved. The JR Toll Road has been fully completed and, since 2021, has been with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).Ambani is not a member of the Board of Reliance Infrastructure. He served the company from April 2007 to March 2022 only as a non-executive director and was never involved in day-to-day management of the company.Ambani has previously been questioned by the ED in a money laundering case linked to an alleged Rs 17,000 crore bank fraud involving his group companies.
Source link
Map on Rahul Gandhi’s ‘95 defeats’ becomes BJP’s key attack line amid NDA’s Bihar lead
Leading the BJP’s charge, the party’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya declared, “Rahul Gandhi! Another election, another defeat!…
