Chandigarh: Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecommunication arm of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), has moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking action against those responsible for damaging its infrastructure in Punjab. The company has also sought a mechanism to compensate it for the damages.
In its petition, Reliance Jio has stated that along with it, its parent company and affiliates have been “victims” of a misinformation campaign, which tagged them as beneficiaries of the recently-passed farm legislations. This, the company has said, has led to “vested interests” damaging its infrastructure in Punjab.
The 661-page petition, a copy of which was accessed by ThePrint, could be heard Tuesday. “The case should come up for hearing tomorrow,” the company’s lawyer Ashish Chopra told The Print.
The move comes in the wake of the damage caused to Jio telecommunication towers across Punjab by supporters of the farmers agitation in the past two weeks. More than 1,500 towers have been impacted with supporters of the agitation either cutting the cables to these towers or physically removing the generators supplying power to them.
The Mukesh Ambani-led RIL is considered by the agitating farmers to be one of the beneficiaries of the three Central farm laws.
Last week, the farmer leaders had appealed to their supporters not to damage these towers, insisting that their protest against Reliance should be limited to boycotting their products and staging dharnas outside their stores and petrol pumps in the state.
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‘No plans to enter farming sector’
At the outset, the petition makes it clear that Reliance has no plans to enter into corporate or contract farming.
“The petitioner and its parent company including its retail arm Reliance Retail Limited (RRL) have not purchased any agriculture land directly or indirectly anywhere in India for the purpose of corporate or contract farming and have absolutely no plans now or in the future to do so,” it reads.
The petition goes on to say that none of its companies have ever entered into “long-term procurement contracts to gain an advantage over farmers” or that its suppliers “buy from farmers at less than remunerative prices nor will they ever do so.”
The petition further states that the company shares the aspiration of Indian farmers to “get a fair and profitable price for what they produce”, adding that they strictly abide by the minimum support price (MSP) mechanism.
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‘Vested interests’
The petition also claims that “vested interests” have spread rumours that the Reliance Group is a beneficiary of the farms laws.
“Vested interests inimical to the petitioner…with a view to advancing their own interest and agendas are actively engaged in spreading false rumours to the effect that the petitioner… is somehow a beneficiary of recent legislation passed by parliament governing marketing of agricultural produce,” the Reliance plea reads.
“On account of the sustained disinformation campaign run by the aforesaid vested interests including through social media channels, the petitioner’s business and its assets have become a target of attack and destruction by miscreants purporting to be engaged in public demonstrations and protests against the farm legislations,” it adds.
The petition also states that 1,500 of its telecom towers have been damaged in the past few weeks.
‘Take action, provide compensation’
The company has urged the high court to order an investigation to “identify the vested interests and miscreants and into their well-orchestrated and sustained disinformation campaign” and direct authorities to take action against them.
In the petition, the company acknowledged that the government had taken some steps to mitigate the situation but asked for “continuous deployment and augmentation of resources to counteract and thwart the efforts being made by the vested interests”.
Reliance has further said that it had suffered losses worth crores and urged the high court to set up a “competent authority” or an alternative “machinery to investigate the damage caused and to award compensation related thereto”.
Also read: Telecom industry body COAI ‘strongly condemns’ destruction of Jio towers amid farmer protests