Reliance Jio moves Punjab, Haryana HC over vandalism of mobile towers

The Reliance Industries Limited RIL through its subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited RJIL in a petition mentioned to be filed in Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday has sought urgent intervention of government authorities to bring a complete stop to illegal acts of vandalism by miscreantsldquoThese acts of violence have endangered the lives of thousands of its employees and caused damage and disruption to the vital communications infrastructure sales and service outlets run by its subsidiaries in the two statesrdquo RIL said in a media statementIt said that the miscreants indulging in vandalism have been instigated and aided by vested interests and their business rivals ldquoTaking advantage of the ongoing farmers agitation near the national capital these vested interests have launched an incessant malicious and motivated vilification campaign against Reliance which has absolutely no basis in truthrdquo the statement readIt further said that the falsehood of the campaign becomes crystal clear from the following irrefutable facts which we have placed before the High Court ldquoThese facts establish that Reliance has nothing whatsoever to do with the three farm laws currently debated in the country and in no way benefits from them As such the sole nefarious purpose of linking the name of Reliance to these laws is to harm our businesses and damage our reputationrdquo said RILReliance Retail Limited RRL Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited RJIL or any other affiliate of our parent company ie Reliance Industries Limited have not done any corporate or contract farming in the past and have absolutely no plans to enter this business added RILRIL stated that neither Reliance nor any of our subsidiaries has purchased any agricultural land directly or indirectly in PunjabHaryana or anywhere else in India for the purpose of corporate or contract farming and have absolutely no plans to do soAccording to RIL Reliance Retail is an unmatched leader in organised retail business in India It retails products of all categories including food grains and staples fruits and vegetables items of daily use apparels medicines electronic products of various brands belonging to independent manufacturers and suppliers in the country It does not purchase any food grains directly from farmersldquoIt has never entered into longterm procurement contracts to gain unfair advantage over farmers or sought that its suppliersrsquo buy from farmers at less than remunerative prices nor will it ever do sordquoldquoWe at Reliance have immense gratitude and the greatest respect for Indias kisans who are the ANNA DATA of 13 billion Indians Reliance and its affiliates are committed to doing everything to enrich and empower them As customers of their services we believe in building a strong and equal partnership with Indian farmers on the basis of shared prosperity inclusive development and an equitable New Indiardquo said RILTherefore it said that Reliance and its affiliates fully share and support the aspiration of Indian farmers to get a fair and profitable price on a predictable basis for what they produce with exemplary hard work innovation and dedicationldquoReliance seeks significant augmentation of their incomes on a sustainable basis and pledges to work towards this goal Indeed we shall insist on our suppliers to strictly abide by the Minimum Support Price MSP mechanism andor any other mechanism for a remunerative price for farm produce as may be determined and implemented by the governmentrdquo RIL saidFar from hurting the interests of Indian farmers the businesses of Reliance have actually benefited them and the Indian public at large said RILAccording to IANS on January 1 RJIL had said that there are blatant efforts to sabotage its network in the garb of farmers protest by the channel partners of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone IdeaIn letters sent to Anshu Prakash Secretary Department of Telecommunications DoT and PD Vaghela Chairman Telecom Regulatory Authority of India TRAI Reliance Jio said that a grave situation has emerged in Punjab and Haryana amid the ongoing farmers protestAs a result of false and frivolous communication that Reliance will be an undue beneficiary of the farm bills passed by Parliament Jios telecommunications network is being targeted by the protesters and the same is being disrupted and permanently damaged Reliance Jio had saidReliance Jio has asked the TRAI and DoT to take action against Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel for these unethical and unscrupulous practice of their channel partners It has also demanded that mobile number portability MNP process in Punjab and Haryana be suspended for the time being till the situation stabilisesIt said that the gravity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that there is an outage of 1504 Jio towers in Punjab which represents 15 per cent of the total number Similar outages have been reported for 85 Jio towers in Haryana Reliance Jio said the situation is worsening every hour and it fears that attempts are being made to spread similar situation in more circlesHowever telecom major Bharti Airtel on January 2 said that Reliance Jios allegations claiming sabotage of the latters tower infrastructure by its rivals are baseless and outrageous In a letter to the Anshu Prakash Secretary of Department of Telecommunications Airtel also condemned the disruption of telecom networks and the instances of vandalismThe baseless allegation made by Jio that Airtel is behind the farmer agitation to sabotage their network and to force customers to switch to Airtel is therefore simply outrageous the letter saidIt also said that Jios annexure to the complaint did not demonstrate any evidence that Airtel has hand in the ongoing issues faced by JioWith inputs from IANS