In a thinly veiled attack, Reliance Industries Ltd [Get Quote] Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Wednesday accused his younger brother Anil's camp of running a 'malicious campaign' to tarnish the image of the company and its leadership.

A strongly worded official statement from the Reliance group said that for the last several weeks, electronic and print media 'has been used by undisclosed and unnamed sources to spread totally baseless canards against the company and its chairman Mukesh Ambani.'

"The board of Reliance Industries Limited is the proper forum to discuss and decide corporate issues and tendentious planting of stories is intended to cause damage to Reliance Industries,' the statement said.

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'RIL strongly refutes the totally baseless insinuations that some shares which were acquired by a few companies on merger of RIL and Reliance Petroleum [Get Quote] Limited and were held by them to ensure that their economic benefits flow to the shareholders, have been appropriated by the Ambani family,' it added.

RIL said that the four companies which continue to hold the 4.7 per cent holding in RIL was for the benefit of RIL's shareholders without any change in its holdings.