Anil Ambani: Expressing discontent

Mumbai, Oct. 15: Anil Ambani raged today against the shenanigans of unnamed corporate rivals, four days after he offered to smoke the peace pipe with his warring brother Mukesh.

Ambani slammed “corporate rivals” for mounting a vicious campaign against his telecom company Reliance Communications (R-Com), which has been accused of diddling the government out of Rs 315.9 crore by understating its wireless revenues.

Telecom companies have to share a part of their revenues with the government under an agreement reached in 1999. The revenue-sharing deal was reached after telecom companies said they were unable to fork out the high fees they had committed to pay when they bid for licences in the early 1990s.

Ambani said parts of a special audit report on R-Com — prepared by a Jaipur-based audit firm Parakh & Co — had been selectively leaked to the media to tarnish the image of his group.

Under the terms of telecom licences, the department of telecommunications (DoT) had appointed special auditors early this year to examine the records of all the major operators.

Ambani said the “campaign of calumny and disinformation” had been timed just before group company Reliance Natural Resources Ltd was due to square off for the final battle in the Supreme Court over gas supplies from the KG-D6 field. The court starts hearing the case on October 20.

According to Ambani, the campaign had been also timed to jeopardise the maiden flotation by Reliance Infratel – a company that owns the telecom tower assets of the group. He said a similar disinformation campaign had been mounted in late 2007 to scuttle the Reliance Power issue.

An angry Anil Ambani said the special auditors appointed by the DoT had put together a “unilateral, biased and prejudiced” report at the instance of the group’s corporate rivals.

Ambani said the group would lodge a formal complaint with market regulator Sebi and demand a formal investigation into the hammering of R-Com’s stock.

He said the conduct and actions of the special auditor would also be taken up with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India through the group’s statutory auditors.

The younger Ambani scion was incensed over the fact that selective extracts from the report were leaked even before a copy of the special audit report was made available to R-Com.

He said this clearly indicated “the hidden intent and malafide design” of the group’s corporate rivals.

“The alleged report/findings have not even been discussed by the special auditors with R-Com till date even though they have been conducting the audit for more than six months,” he said.

Ambani said the special auditors had also exceeded their terms of reference and recorded “unwarranted and completely incorrect findings on matters beyond the scope of their audit”.

Ambani said R-Com would discuss the issues raised in the special audit with the DoT or other authorities. He asserted that R-Com would pay any legitimate dues towards licence fees.