Reliance Group alleges malicious campaign to tarnish its reputation

Anil Ambani's Reliance Group on Wednesday issued a statement in anticipation of an online portal targeting it with an alleged expose, saying corporate rivals were resorting to a campaign of calumny, disinformation and character assassination.

The group's listed companies, Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Power, in a statement to stock exchanges, said the portal Cobrapost's 'expose' was a mere "regurgitation of old publicly available information - misrepresented, distorted and taken entirely out of context".

"The information being referred to is long available in the public domain and has already been examined by statutory authorities, including the CBI, ED, SEBI, and other competent agencies," it added.

Cobrapost has sent invitations for a press conference on Thursday to highlight "how a corporate giant diverted funds worth Rs 28,874 crore in a fraudulent manner".

Without disclosing the name of the corporate, the invitation titled "The Lootwallahs: How Indian Business is Robbing Indians-I. The Ledger of Lies. A Fraud Worth Around Rs 41,000 crore Exposed".

Stating that it had received media queries on the proposed press conference, Reliance Group said, "It has come to the attention that certain corporate rivals, acting through nominated individuals and associated entities, have undertaken a deliberate and sustained campaign of calumny, disinformation, and character assassination".

The "malicious campaign", it said, was aimed at "crashing the stock prices, and engineering panic in stock markets to acquire Reliance Group assets".

It went on to call the alleged expose "a desperate attempt for extortion of concessions and other benefits".

The group, however, did not say who the rival corporates were, but identified the assets rivals were vying to acquire after beating down the price - Delhi's power distribution company BSES Ltd, Mumbai Metro and 1,200 MW Rosa power project.