India’s top clean energy agency weighs criminal proceedings against Reliance Power

INDIA’S top renewable energy agency has sent a notice to Reliance Power, a company run by Anil Ambani. According to a notice dated Wednesday (Nov 13), the agency asked why it should not initiate criminal proceedings after a subsidiary of the power producer submitted fake documents for a bid.

Last week, Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) barred the power company from participating in its clean energy project tenders for three years, after it found that a unit of the company had submitted a fake endorsement of a foreign bank guarantee.

SECI said on Wednesday that the bank guarantee submitted by the unit, Reliance Nu Bess, was also fake.

“The repeated submission of a fake bank guarantee along with its counterfeit endorsement has been deemed a deliberate act by the bidder, intended to vitiate the tendering process and to secure the project capacity through fraudulent means,” SECI added.

Reliance Power did not immediately respond to a Reuters request seeking comment on the notice.

The power company said last week that it would legally challenge SECI’s ban and had lodged a police complaint against the third party that arranged the bank guarantee.

The notice and ban come as Reliance Power, a coal power generator, is looking to expand into the domestic and overseas renewable energy sector.

Indian companies are increasingly looking to set up clean-energy projects as the country targets 500 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy by 2030 as part of its 2070 net-zero goal, up from the current installed capacity of about 154 GW.

In August, Anil Ambani was banned from the securities market for five years and fined about US$3 million by the Indian markets regulator on charges of fund diversion. REUTERS