Public sector banks appeal against stay on fraud classification proceedings against Anil Ambani

Three public sector banks on Monday (January 12, 2026) filed an appeal against the stay on proceedings initiated against industrialist Anil Ambani and Reliance Communications Ltd classifying their bank accounts as fraud.

The banks challenged a single Bench order passed in December 2025 granting interim relief to Ambani and his company citing violations of mandatory RBI rules and a classic case of banks "waking up from deep slumber" after years.

The single Bench order had stayed all present and future action by Indian Overseas Bank, IDBI Bank and Bank of Baroda noting that the action was based on a legally flawed forensic audit and violated the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) mandatory guidelines.

The three banks in its appeal that came up for hearing on Monday (January 12, 2026) before a division Bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad said the forensic audit, which led to accounts being classified as "fraud", was legally valid and based on serious findings of fund siphoning and misutilisation.

The banks said this was recorded in the report submitted by the audit firm BDO LLP.

The banks in their plea said Ambani had raised a technical challenge to the forensic audit before the single Bench.

The banks sought the division Bench to quash the single Bench's interim order noting that the same was perverse.

The HC, after hearing brief arguments on Monday (January 12, 2026), posted the matter for further hearing on January 14.

Before the single Bench, Mr. Ambani had challenged show-cause notices issued by Indian Overseas Bank, IDBI and Bank of Baroda seeking to declare his and Reliance Communications' accounts as fraud accounts.

As an interim relief, he sought a stay to the notices and an injunction against any coercive action on the ground that BDO LLP was not qualified to conduct the forensic audit as its signatory was not a chartered accountant.

BDO LLP was an accounting consultant firm and not an audit firm, Mr. Ambani had claimed.

The single Bench had agreed with Mr. Ambani and stayed the bank's action.