A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Bhushan R Gavai and justice K Vinod Chandran issued notice on the petition filed by retired bureaucrat EAS Sarma who said that the present investigation does not examine the role of bank officials, who came to know about the fraud in 2020 but waited till August 2025 to register a first information report.

"Have you served a copy of the petition to the Union of India? " the bench asked advocate Prashant Bhushan appearing for the petitioner. Bhushan said that CBI and ED should also be asked to submit a status report on the investigation conducted so far. He further stated that the banks have colluded with the companies facing probe.

The court asked the petitioner, "Have you added the banks as parties (in the petition)against whom you are alleging collusion?" Bhushan said that judgments of the court provide that the persons against whom a probe is sought need not be joined as parties. However, the petition has named Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) and Anil Ambani as parties in its petition.

The court agreed to hear the matter after three weeks.

Bhushan told the court that the matter involves bank fraud of alarming proportion of over ₹20,000 crore. He alleged that CBI and ED have not focussed on the institutional complicity involved in this case which has kept bank officials out of scrutiny.

The petition pointed out that the investigating agencies have based the allegations a 2020 forensic audit report which contains serious allegations of diversion of funds, fictitious transactions and use of shell companies. Despite having the information, there was a five-year delay in registering the criminal case. This, according to Sarma, clearly indicates involvement of bank officials and other public servants whose conduct "enabled, concealed, or facilitated" the fraud.

No bank pushed for statutory action till August this year, a delay that cannot be explained without examining whether officers acted in collusion or with deliberate intent to shield the borrower group, the petition said.

The case was registered on the complaint given by State Bank of India (SBI) which was the lead bank among a consortium of eight banks which gave loans worth ₹31,580 crore to Reliance Communications Limited (RCOM), Reliance Infratel Limited and Telecom Limited for a period from 2013 to 2017.

The first information report (FIR) filed on August 21 alleged criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal misconduct by RCOM and other unknown public servants and individuals, resulting in a wrongful loss of ₹2,929.05 crores. This came after the bank commissioned a forensic audit for this period against the three entities.

Although searches have been conducted across over thirty-five premises, no arrests have been made, no assets have been seized, and no accounts have been frozen, indicating difficulty on part of the investigating agencies and necessitating judicial supervision, the petition said.

Seeking a court-monitored probe, it stated, "A fraud of this magnitude, involving public money and public institutions, cannot be investigated in a piecemeal manner without examining the conduct of public sector bank officials, statutory regulators, and government authorities."

It even sought the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising officers from CBI and ED to conduct a thorough, impartial, and time-bound investigation into the material produced by the petitioner.