Fallen Empire

There was a time when Anil Ambani stood as the most visible emblem of India’s post-liberalisation optimism. Charismatic, articulate and ambitious, he represented the ‘New India’ that believed it could build, borrow, and brand its way to global eminence. From telecom to infrastructure, from entertainment to power, the younger Ambani’s empire seemed destined to rival his elder brother’s. Two decades later, that gleaming empire lies in ruins, its remnants now under the scrutiny of the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

The latest blow came when the ED provisionally attached assets worth Rs.3,084 crore linked to the Anil D. Ambani-led Reliance Group on the charge of laundering and diversion of funds from group companies Reliance Home Finance Ltd (RHFL) and Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd (RCFL). Among the properties seized were his Pali Hill residence in Mumbai and the Reliance Centre at Delhi. Also frozen were parcels of land in Noida, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad, East Godavari and 29 flats in Chennai.

Between 2017 and 2019, Yes Bank had invested nearly Rs. 5,000 crore in instruments issued by RHFL and RCFL. By the end of 2019, those investments had turned sour. Investigators allege that as much as Rs.17,000 crore was diverted through a network of companies linked to Reliance Infrastructure and other group entities. Loans were sanctioned without due diligence, sometimes even before applications were filed. Security documents were left blank, borrowers were ghost firms, and funds were allegedly channelled through circuitous routes, including via Yes Bank’s exposures and mutual fund investments that were never meant to touch Ambani’s companies.

The picture that emerges from the probe is mere corporate misjudgement but of systematic misuse of public money. The ED’s fund-tracking exercise suggests deliberate concealment, circular lending and a pattern of “control failures” too consistent to be accidental.

The Reliance Group has dismissed the attachments as having “no impact” on its ongoing business, stressing that Anil Ambani has not held a board position at Reliance Infrastructure for over three years. Yet, such protestations ring hollow. The group’s reputation, once buoyed by the glow of its founder’s name, is now synonymous with default, litigation and regulatory scrutiny.

Ambani’s downfall is a parable of India’s debt-fuelled capitalism. In the boom years following liberalisation, leverage was a badge of confidence; banks and investors lined up to fund audacious projects. But when the cycle turned, many of these ventures collapsed under their own weight. Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications was one of the first casualties of India’s brutal telecom wars, eclipsed by Mukesh Ambani’s Jio. His infrastructure and power ventures, starved of cash flow, were soon trapped in a vortex of refinancing, restructuring and eventual insolvency.

The current spate of attachments is the final act of a long unravelling. What began as misjudged expansion has ended with allegations of fraud. Ambani’s empire was both a product and a victim of India’s exuberant financial era. His fall mirrors the retreat of an age when India’s industrial titans believed themselves untouchable.