New Delhi: A Special Court has directed summoning of Reliance group chairman Mukesh Ambani and its managing director Anil Ambani in a case in which the company's officials were alleged to have entered into a criminal conspiracy to procure classified government documents violating Official Secrets Act.

Additional Sessions Judge P K Bhasin has directed Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Sangita Dhingra Sehgal to issue summons to Mukesh and Anil, the then managing directors of Reliance Industries Limited, for being "statutorily deemed to be guilty" of the offence alleged to have been committed by officials of the company.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had claimed to have recovered photocopies of four classified secret documents of different ministries of the government from Reliance's office at Meridien Commercial towers during a raid conducted on October 28, 1998 in connection with a case registered against gangster Romesh Sharma and others for the offences of extortion and abduction.

CBI had named V Balasubramaniam (president, Reliance), A N Sethuraman (vice president, Reliance Industries) and Shankar Adawal (general manager, Reliance Telecom) as accused and charged them with entering into a criminal conspiracy for receiving, possessing and handling classified documents.

Since the possession of these documents were allegedly unauthorised, it could cause risk to national security, the agency alleged.

It was also found that copies of those secret documents had been faxed to late Dhirubhai Ambani, Mukesh, Anil and also to one N R Meswani, executive director of Reliance.

CBI has alleged that the documents recovered from the official premises of the company were beneficial for promoting the interests of the company.

PTI