Summons against RIL top brass

A Mumbai court has issued summons to Reliance Industries (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani and five top executives of the company for alleged violation of certain Companies Act provisions.

An email seeking comments sent to Reliance Industries spokesperson on May 7, the date of summons and a subsequent reminder last week did not elicit any response.

The executives, including RIL directors Nikhil Meswani, Hital Meswani, P M S Prasad, P K Kapil and company secretary K Sethuraman, are required to appear before the additional chief metropolitan magistrate on June 22. The officials were summoned by the Mumbai Metropolitan magistrate last month in a case filed by a Mumbai-based investor Shailesh Mehta.

Mehta, 69, who was part of the famous Reliance initial public offering four decades ago, has had several skirmishes with the company in the past including his protest against the merger of Reliance Petroleum. He told Business Standard the latest summons are one of the several instances where 'price sensitive information' have been withheld from the shareholders. Mehta said that since he has not received any satisfactory response he is planning to take up the issue of adequate disclosures with the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the corporate affairs ministry.