After lawyer Prashant Bhushan lodged a complaint, Attorney General Tushar Mehta said the CBI could not complete the investigation within four weeks as promised earlier due to the discovery of certain new facts and dimensions in the case and handed over the status report of the CBI and ED investigation to CJI Surya Kant and Justice J Bagchi.
“I cannot respond to the allegations as to why some people were arrested and others were not,” Mehta said.
On March 23, the bench, expressing dissatisfaction over the investigation agency’s apparent reluctance to take action against the ADAG group of companies, said further orders would be passed after reviewing the status report and the matter was referred for further hearing on May 8.
During the last hearing, Anil Ambani’s lawyer Mukul Rohatgi said ADAG was ready to discuss settlement of dues with banks and financial institutions.
Senior defense lawyer Kapil Sibal appeared in court on Thursday and told the judge it was vital the court needed to understand the context of the case.
The subject of the PIL was that ADAG companies took huge loans from banks and then initiated insolvency proceedings so that the companies could be taken over by relatives, a scam that lawyer Prabhas Bajaj said was very common in insolvency proceedings.
When he cited examples of solvent companies being bought cheaply by other companies through bankruptcy proceedings, causing huge losses to banks, the judge said he would not discuss individual cases.
“Our efforts are aimed at dispelling the impression that large companies involved in such cases can escape easily,” the statement said.