‘Courts are not moved by spectacle. They act when the facts, as they stand, call for the law to step in.’

IMAGE: Reliance Industries Ltd Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani. Photograph: Niharika Kulkarni/Reuters

The Orissa high court has ruled that a company’s chairman cannot be held criminally liable for a defective product sold by a local dealer, just as the railway minister or postal authorities cannot be summoned for delayed trains or lost letters.

Justice Sanjeeb K Panigrahi dismissed a criminal complaint filed against Reliance Industries Limited and its chairman Mukesh Ambani over a faulty cellphone worth Rs 501 sold in Rourkela more than 23 years ago.

Censuring a lower court for issuing summons in the matter, the high court ruled that the case was a clear instance of harassment.

It imposed a fine of Rs 1,000 on the complainant, lawyer Prafulla Kumar Mishra, directing that the amount be deposited with the Juvenile Justice Fund of the Odisha State Legal Services Authority within four weeks.

The high court observed that the complaint’s premise was legally untenable.

‘If such an approach were accepted, it would open the floodgates for indiscriminate criminal prosecution, allowing passengers to summon the Railway Minister for delayed trains or the Postmaster General for a lost letter, or even the Union Food Minister for a defective item supplied through a ration outlet,’ said the March 31 order uploaded on the court’s web site.

Criminal Liability Principle Clarified

Criminal law rests on a direct and personal nexus between the accused and the alleged offence.

In the absence of such a connection, merely holding a high office or public profile cannot be grounds to implicate an individual in criminal proceedings, it said.

The court said the attempt to arraign Ambani had no connection with the pursuit of a legitimate criminal remedy.

Instead, it described the case as, in substance, a publicity-driven exercise presented in the form of a criminal complaint.

The case traces back to 2003, when Mishra, who was then practising in Rourkela, bought a telecom scheme of Reliance Infocomm by paying Rs 501 and agreeing to monthly payments.

He alleged that the phone supplied by a local dealer as part of the scheme was defective and he was served fake bills of Rs 6,398 when the phone was with the dealer for repairs.

Over the years, the complainant initiated multiple criminal proceedings against Ambani and Reliance companies.

The first two complaints filed in 2003 and 2004 were quashed by the High Court, and the Supreme Court dismissed special leave petitions against those orders in 2007, citing that no criminal case was made out.

A third round of proceedings in 2016 resulted in cognisance only against a local dealer, with the court consistently refusing to summon Ambani.

Subsequent attempts, including an application to add him as an accused, were also rejected by the high court.

Mishra filed a fresh complaint before the sub-divisional judicial magistrate, Panposh in Rourkela in 2025, leading to notices being issued in January this year, prompting Reliance Industries and Ambani to approach the high court.

Quashing the proceedings, the high curt underscored that the dispute involved a ‘trivial’ transaction value of Rs 501 but had led to an ‘almost unrelenting pursuit’ of criminal litigation spanning over two decades.

The high court held that successive complaints on identical facts, especially after earlier ones were quashed and upheld up to the Supreme Court, amounted to harassment and fell squarely within the category of abuse of process laid down in landmark rulings such as State of Haryana vs Bhajan Lal and Sunil Bharti Mittal vs CBI.

It found no legal basis to prosecute Ambani, reiterating the settled principle that criminal liability is personal and cannot be imposed vicariously on company officials unless specifically provided by statute.

Besides, Reliance Industries was found to have no connection with the telecom entities involved in the original transaction.

The high court expressed concern over the conduct of the SDJM, maintaining that summons had been issued without adequate scrutiny despite the long litigation history.

Issuance of summons, it emphasised, is a serious judicial act requiring application of mind, particularly when the complaint itself indicates repeated litigation on the same issue.

‘Courts are not moved by spectacle. They act when the facts, as they stand, call for the law to step in. A simple inquiry as to whether any earlier proceeding was instituted would have revealed the full history. No such inquiry appears to have been made,’ said the order.

The high court quashed the complaint and the summons dated January 27, 2026, discharging Reliance Industries and Ambani from further proceedings.

‘A sense of grievance, however deep, does not entitle a person to weaponise the criminal law against those who have already been found to bear no criminal liability,’ the court observed.

Mishra, now a resident of Bhubaneswar and a practising lawyer in the high court, said he is examining the order and will initiate an appropriate legal course of action.

“I have been fighting the case for the last 23 years. The phone I bought was faulty, but surprisingly I was served bills for a period of nearly one year when the handset was under the dealer’s possession for repair,” he told Business Standard.

“I may go for a counter petition in the high court or a special leave petition in the Supreme Court after analysing the order.”

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff