Ambani row flares up

The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (R-ADAG) will soon release correspondence to prove, in its words, "the blatant violation of the June 2005 family agreement by the Reliance Industries Ltd-Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani (MDA) group".

In so doing, the group may take recourse to the fact that all its entities are listed on the stock market and therefore needs to make adequate disclosures.

R-ADAG has charged RIL with "systematically violating every major commitment of the family settlement".

In response, RIL said if R-ADAG has any grievances, "it should approach the appropriate forum for resolution".

Sources close to the developments said the June 2005 agreement had an arbitration and reconciliation mechanism built in, but the matter could also be sorted out through talks.

RIL added that it had fulfilled all its obligations and commitments and would continue to do so. "The current set of issues raised by R-ADAG is an attempt to divert attention away from the shockingly petty acts of harassment of RIL employees at the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City," MDA sources said.

R-ADAG said the MDA group was desperately trying to divert attention to non-issues, and that it wanted to dishonour the June 2005 agreement on gas supply to Reliance Energy at prices agreed on and to dishonour commitment to supply gas to NTPC Ltd.

R-ADAG also said the Mukesh Ambani group was solely responsible for delaying NTPC's and Reliance Energy's large power projects. It has also accused the group of spreading misinformation on government approvals for the gas supply agreement.

In response, RIL said the "propagation of false and baseless allegations relating to RIL's intent to dishonour its commitments is clearly intended to instigate entities with whom RIL has a long history of excellent business relationship. These are malicious allegations and are denied".