Delhi High Court refuses bail to ex-CFO in SECI battery-storage guarantee case

What the Record Shows

The Delhi High Court on 10 June 2026 refused regular bail to Ashok Kumar Pal, described in the order as a former Chief Financial Officer of Reliance Power, in a money-laundering case the Enforcement Directorate is pursuing over allegedly forged bank guarantees submitted in a Solar Energy Corporation of India battery-storage tender. Justice Madhu Jain, deciding Bail Application 1136 of 2026, recorded that she was "unable to record satisfaction that there are reasonable grounds" to hold the applicant not guilty, the test the Prevention of Money Laundering Act sets for bail, and dismissed the application.

The ED's case is registered as ECIR/STF/14/2025 and rests on two Delhi Police first-information reports at Police Station Mandir Marg, FIR No. 0131/2024 of 11 November 2024 and FIR No. 0079/2025 of 24 June 2025. The predicate offences, as the High Court set them out, are under Sections 318(4), 338, 336(3), 340(2) and 61(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and Section 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The order records that eleven accused are arrayed, that the principal accused is named as Partha Sarathi Biswal along with his firm, and that Pal was arrested on 10 October 2025 and has been in judicial custody since.

This is an untested allegation at the prosecution-complaint stage. Nothing has been proved, no one has been convicted, and the corporate accused publicly contest the case. The Reliance group has stated on record that Anil Ambani, who is not an accused in this matter, has not been on the Reliance Power board for over three and a half years, and his name does not appear among the accused.

How It Worked

The mechanism the ED alleges centres on a single procurement credential, the bank guarantee. According to the ED's case as recorded in the bail order, to qualify in the tariff-based competitive bid floated by the Solar Energy Corporation of India for a 1000 MW / 2000 MWh standalone Battery Energy Storage System, a bidder had to furnish a bank guarantee of about Rs 68.20 crore backed by an acceptable endorsement. The ED alleges that guarantees purportedly issued by FirstRand Bank in the Philippines and ACE Investment Bank in Malaysia were submitted, and that "forged SBI endorsements and SFMS confirmations were subsequently furnished" to support them, per the court's account of the allegations.

The ED alleges that an intermediary entity, named in the order as the firm of the principal accused Partha Sarathi Biswal, was engaged for a commission to procure the instruments, and that the endorsements said to come from the State Bank of India, along with the secure messaging confirmations that ordinarily authenticate such instruments, were not genuine. It is that layer of purported inter-bank confirmation, which procurement systems treat as self-authenticating, that the ED alleges was fabricated.

On the ED's case, the corporation detected the anomaly in the instruments. A valid guarantee from IDBI Bank was then obtained, but only after the deadline had passed, and it was rejected. The ED alleges a further attempt to obtain a fresh endorsement of the original instrument, and it has quantified the proceeds of crime in the matter at about Rs 11.73 crore. Each of these is an allegation the ED must still prove; the framing of a prosecution complaint and the refusal of bail are not findings of guilt.

Who Lost Money

The party said to be wronged here is not a body of retail investors but a central public-sector corporation and the integrity of the process it runs. The Solar Energy Corporation of India, a public-sector undertaking under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, floats competitive tenders in which the bank guarantee is the security that a bidder is genuine and able to perform. The ED alleges that submitting forged guarantees corrupted that ranking, to the disadvantage of competing bidders who met the requirement honestly.

No public money was paid out on the strength of the alleged instruments, because the corporation is said to have caught the anomaly before the tender proceeded on that footing. The harm the ED asserts is therefore to the integrity of the bidding rather than a cash loss from the exchequer, with the quantified proceeds of crime, about Rs 11.73 crore, representing the benefit the agency alleges flowed through the arrangement rather than a sum drawn from public funds.

Because the alleged victim is a procurement system, there is no depositor pool awaiting a distribution. What is at stake is whether the ED can establish, to the criminal standard, that the instruments were forged and that the accused were party to it.

Where It Stands Now

The current position, on the record reviewed, is a prosecution complaint filed and a trial not yet begun. The ED filed its prosecution complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act before the Patiala House court in Delhi in December 2025, and three individuals connected to the matter, including the former Chief Financial Officer, have been in judicial custody. The Delhi High Court's order of 10 June 2026 refused bail to that former CFO but decided nothing about the ultimate guilt of any accused; it applied the stringent bail test under the money-laundering law and left the allegations to be tried.

The corporate accused contest the case publicly, and no charge has been established against any person or company. Where the ED names Reliance Power and its associated entities among the accused, those are allegations in the agency's complaint, not proven facts.

A prosecution complaint contains allegations, not findings of guilt; the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and due process continues. The Rs 68.20 crore guarantee figure, the description of forged endorsements, and the Rs 11.73 crore proceeds-of-crime estimate are all the ED's assertions, to be established or rejected at trial.

What It Means

The instructive feature of this matter is where the alleged attack landed: not on a payment, but on a document that everyone downstream trusts without re-checking. A bank guarantee endorsement and its secure-messaging confirmation are treated across procurement as self-authenticating, which is exactly why the ED's case is that they were the thing forged. That a corporation is alleged to have caught the anomaly, rather than paying out against it, is the part of the story worth keeping in view: the safeguard that matters is independent verification of an instrument with the issuing bank, not the impressive appearance of the paper.

The wider takeaway is about reading such cases at the right altitude. A refusal of bail under the money-laundering law turns on a demanding statutory test and is not a verdict; a prosecution complaint is the start of a trial, not its conclusion. That discipline, separating an accusation from a finding, is what this desk applies throughout. Readers can follow comparable matters through Oquilia's enforcement coverage, and may find useful parallels in our reports on the Kerala High Court's refusal of bail in the half-price CSR case, another bail decision that settled no guilt, and the SEBI order in the Zee Entertainment pledge case.

FAQ

Does this mean the people named are guilty?

No. A prosecution complaint contains allegations, not findings of guilt. The eleven accused, including the corporate entities named by the ED, are presumed innocent until proven guilty, the case is contested, and the matter has not reached trial. The refusal of bail decided a statutory bail test, not the guilt of anyone.

Is Anil Ambani an accused in this case?

No. Anil Ambani is not an accused in this matter, and the Reliance group has stated on record that he has not been on the Reliance Power board for over three and a half years. The accused named in the ED's complaint are the eleven persons and entities arrayed in it, and his name is not among them.

What did the Delhi High Court actually decide?

The Delhi High Court, on 10 June 2026, refused regular bail to a former Reliance Power CFO, holding that it was "unable to record satisfaction that there are reasonable grounds" to consider him not guilty, the test the money-laundering law imposes. It did not rule on the truth of the allegations, which remain to be tried.

What is the ED alleged to have found?

The ED alleges that guarantees purportedly issued by FirstRand Bank in the Philippines and ACE Investment Bank in Malaysia, supported by forged State Bank of India endorsements and secure-messaging confirmations, were submitted for a Rs 68.20 crore guarantee requirement in a SECI battery-storage tender, and it has quantified proceeds of crime at about Rs 11.73 crore. These are allegations.

Was any public money lost?

On the ED's account, the corporation detected the anomaly before proceeding, so no payment was made against the alleged instruments. The asserted harm is to the integrity of the competitive bid and to honest competing bidders, with the proceeds-of-crime figure representing an alleged benefit rather than a sum drawn from public funds.

Where can I read the official record?

The Delhi High Court's bail order of 10 June 2026 in the matter is published on Indian Kanoon and is linked below.

This report is based on the order of the Delhi High Court dated 10 June 2026 in Ashok Kumar Pal versus Directorate of Enforcement, Bail Application 1136 of 2026, reviewed on 2 August 2026.