SREI knocks on High Court door against yesterday's CBI raid

The legal battle between the Srei Group and federal investigative agencies escalated on Friday as the company moved the Calcutta High Court to challenge the widespread raids conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The petition follows a massive coordinated operation on Thursday, where CBI teams, backed by additional central forces, searched several locations across Kolkata, including the Alipore and New Town residences and offices of the firm's promoters. The Srei Group is seeking judicial relief against the agency's actions, which stem from an alleged ₹1,000 crore bank fraud case involving public sector lenders.

The CBI’s investigation centers on allegations that the Kolkata-based finance giant siphoned off funds under the guise of loans between 2014 and 2020. According to the federal agency, the promoters and their associate firms allegedly diverted nearly ₹731 crore from a primary advance and an additional ₹260 crore through an associate company. The CBI claims that after securing these loans through misrepresented documents, the funds were siphoned off instead of being utilized for the sanctioned purposes, eventually leading to massive defaults across a consortium of seven banks.

This legal move comes at a time when the Srei Group is already embroiled in a larger financial crisis. In late 2025, major public sector banks, including Punjab National Bank (PNB), officially reported fresh loan frauds totaling over ₹2,400 crore linked to the ousted promoters of Srei Equipment Finance and Srei Infrastructure Finance. While the group had previously seen its boards superseded by the RBI in 2021 and was eventually acquired by the National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited (NARCL) in late 2023, these new criminal probes by the CBI mark a significant shift from insolvency proceedings to potential criminal prosecution.