New Delhi: Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani has offered to appear before the Enforcement Directorate through "virtual means" following summons issued to him under the 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 rejected Ambani's offer to appear virtually. They are expected to issue him a fresh date for deposition in due course. The agency, according to sources, had asked Ambani to appear in person on Friday and get recorded his statement under the 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 the FEMA) against R-Infra, found that an alleged Rs 40 crore was "siphoned" from the highway project. "Funds moved through Surat-based shell companies to Dubai. The trail has unearthed a wider international hawala network exceeding Rs 600 crore," the agency had said.
The ED has recorded the statement of various persons, including some alleged hawala dealers, following which they decided to summon Ambani, the sources said. Hawala denotes illegal movement of funds, largely in cash. "The matter (FEMA case) is 15 years old, dates to 2010, and concerns issues associated with a road contractor," the statement said. In 2010, Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. awarded an EPC contract for the construction of the JR Toll Road (Jaipur-Ringus Highway), it said. "This was a purely domestic contract with no foreign exchange component involved whatsoever. "The JR Toll Road has been fully completed and, from 2021 onwards has been with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for over past four years," the statement added. Ambani is not a member of the Board of Reliance Infrastructure. "He served the company for about fifteen years, from April 2007 to March 2022, only as a non-executive director, and was never involved in day-to-day management of the company," it said. The businessman has once been questioned by the ED in a money laundering case linked to an alleged Rs 17,000 crore worth bank fraud against his group companies.