Ericsson controversy: Anil Ambani warned, pay dues in a month or go to jail.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today ruled on the three contempt petitions filed by telecom equipment manufacturer Ericsson, on the payment of arrears against Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani and two others, which increased Anil Ambani’s troubles further. In the case of Ericsson, the Supreme Court has given orders to Reliance Group return Rs 550 crore to Ericsson. If Anil Ambani is unable to return the money, he could be imprisoned for 3-months and also fined for Rs 10 crore. A bench of Justice R. F. Nariman and Vineet Saran had reserved its decision on February 13, when Ericsson India had alleged that the Reliance Group had been investing money in the Rafael Airbus but they were unable to pay the dues of Rs 550 crore to them.

Anil Ambani has denied allegations

Reliance Group, led by Anil Ambani, denied the charge. Ambani told the Supreme Court that after the failure of the property deal sale with big brother Mukesh Ambani. Anil’s company is seeking for insolvency, therefore there has no control over the amount.

Reliance Communications (RCom) had told the court that they tried there best to clear the Ericsson dues were not able to because of the failed property deal with Jio. This contempt petition is filed against Anil Ambani, chairman of Reliance Telecom, Satish Seth, Reliance Infratel chairman and Chhaya Virani SBI president.

What is the dispute?

Ericsson had a deal with RCom in 2014. According to which, Ericsson had to manage RCom Telecom’s network for the next 7 years, but in the meantime, the situation got worsened and Ericsson turned to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) and told that RCom owed them 1100 crores.

On this, SBI opposed Ericsson’s claim and said that if the insolvency processing against RCom went ahead, then 14 banks of the public sector could lose thousands of crore rupees. Meanwhile, Ericsson argued about Brookfield deal and asked to be paid 550 million rupees. However, RCom has not paid Ericsson yet.