The Mumbai unit of the Income Tax Investigation Department passed an order under the 2015 Black Money Act (BMA) against Reliance (ADA) Group Chairman Anil Ambani in March 2022. The Black Money Act Order 2019 was first filed after a notice was issued to the industrialist on alleged undeclared assets. Anil Ambani was sent questions by the investigation team, but he did not respond to those questions.
The BMA order is understood to expand the beneficial ownership of Anil Ambani’s entities in two offshore shelters, the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands. In the Bahamas, Anil Ambani established Diamond Trust in 2006 with an offshore company, DreamWorks Holdings Inc. The requests sent by the CBDT to the Bahamas through the Foreign Tax and Tax Research (FTTR) Division revealed that it had a Swiss bank account – with the Zurich branch of UBS Bank. The order brought to the fore transactions worth over Rs 800 crore in offshore entities and linked bank accounts. Sources said that this figure has been worked out on the basis of the current rupee-dollar rate.
Another undisclosed offshore company in BVI is North Atlantic Trading Unlimited, incorporated by Anil Ambani in 2010. This company was found to have a linked bank account with the Bank of Cyprus. The entity was one of 18 entities linked to Anil Ambani in a recently published “pandora papers” investigation listed by The Indian Express. Clearly, it was already on the radar of IT officials.
In the Anil Ambani case, a final assessment order has been passed under section 10(3) of the BMA 2015, whereby an assessing officer passes a final order after taking into account all aggregated accounts, documents or evidence. 2 years ago in February 2020, Anil Ambani told a UK court that he has become insolvent and his net worth is ‘nil’.
The answers given by the representatives of the Chairman of the ADA Group are reflected by the IT officials in the final evaluation order. Earlier the chairman of Reliance ADA Group was involved in more than one offshore investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in partnership with The Indian Express and other media groups.