The charade is finally over — and a war of words has erupted all over again.

A week after Future Retail and Amazon surprised everyone with an elaborate farce that raised the hope of some sort of rapprochement after an intense 16-month squabble in various courts, the combatants appeared to be squaring off for a renewed battle over the future of Future Retail, which is scrambling to raise money to pay off a Rs 3,494.56 crore debt by January 29 or risk being declared a defaulter.

On Tuesday, the independent directors of Future Retail formally rejected Amazon’s overture of Rs 7,000 crore to help it tide over a debt default -- and accused the Jeff Bezos-owned giant of playing a game of “smoke and mirrors” with an intention to grab media attention.

“It is now clear that your letters were just a game of smoke and mirrors to serve your purpose of gaining media attention,” the letter written by FRL independent director Ravindra Dhariwal said.

The Telegraph has a copy of the letter written by Dhariwal on behalf of FRL’s independent directors to the Seattle-based e-commerce major.

In their letter formally rejecting Amazon’s offer of monetary support, the FRL independent directors accused the Jeff Bezos-owned company of trying to acquire the Future Group’s retail assets for a lowball sum of Rs 7,000 crore when it already had a bid worth Rs 24,713 crore from Reliance Retail.

At the same time, the Future group has moved the Supreme Court in a desperate move to stop the lenders from declaring the beleaguered retailer as a defaulter -- a tag that raises the risk of being hauled into an insolvency process, effectively scuppering the sale to the Reliance group.

The Future Retail directors described Amazon’s offer of Rs 7000 crore as “an attempt to buy the FRL assets on the cheap” when viewed in the “context of the financials of the Reliance transaction”. They added that it was not even sufficient to meet the firm’s liabilities of Rs 12,027.31 crore by March.

The directors of FRL said they were prepared to assess any proposal that provided a “comprehensive solution” to its debt crisis. “But your offer is more by way of posturing for extraneous reasons and not to address the crisis in which FRL finds itself,” the letter said.

The independent directors said if Amazon had provided the urgently required sum of Rs 3500 crore before the looming deadline, they would have engaged with it.

The letter said the Reliance offer, which had already received approvals from various regulators including SEBI and the Competition Commission of India, “will enable FRL to repay all its bank debts and suppliers, save the jobs of 25,000 employees, and protect the investment of lakhs of small shareholders.”

The Amazon offer – which requires FRL to sell all its retail assets to Samara Capital, an independent private equity firm – would leave FRL “in a hopeless situation facing bankruptcy proceedings” and cause public injury and public harm, the letter added.

FRL said Amazon had failed to state what authority it had to be able to negotiate and finalise a transaction on behalf of Samara Capital.

“You have clarified that Amazon would ‘facilitate’ discussions, with your exact role and relationship with Samara Capital being unclear,” the letter added.

Amazon had initially said an Amazon representative Abhijeet Muzumdar would lead the discussions and later suggested that Sumeet Narang, founder of Samara Capital, would be in charge.

“It needs to be clearly stated that foreign investment in multi-brand retail is impermissible without government approval and any investment by Samara must be transparent, and not an indirect investment by Amazon contrary to the rules….it is necessary that Amazon / Samara transparently disclose to us and the authorities, the ultimate beneficial owners / contributors to the Samara fund in India through various layers. Further, Amazon should confirm that it has not directly or indirectly funded any amount to Samara,” the letter said.

‘Game of smoke and mirrors’

• Jan 19:Amazon writes a letter to independent directors of FRL offering financial assistance

• Jan. 21: FRL directors reply to Amazon. Say FRL willing to accept the financial assistance. Seeks immediate payment of Rs 3,500 crore through an unsecured long-term loan

• Jan. 23: Amazon confirms that Samara Capital remains committed to invest Rs 7,000 crore. Transaction will have the understanding that the deal with the Reliance group will not be acted upon.

• Jan. 25: Independent directors reject Amazon’s offer. Claim the retail giant is not serious about the rescue proposal. Call it a sorry attempt to buy FRL assets cheap