Mumbai: A local court has issued summons against industrialist Mukesh Ambani, his brother Anil Ambani and seven others in response to a complaint of alleged extortion filed by a city resident saying that he was falsely being roped in as a subscriber of Reliance phone service and asked to pay bills.

The summons were issued by additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate D A Joshi on August 19 on a private complaint filed by Dinesh Kotecha who alleged that he was getting phone bills although he was not subscribing to Reliance cell phone service.

Observing that prima facie case was made out against them, the court asked Ambani brothers and others to appear in person within 90 days.

Kotecha's lawyer Niranjan Lapsia submitted that his client had received the first bill for the month of December 2003 following which he registered a criminal complaint with V P Road police station against Reliance Infocomm, Reliance Industries and Reliance Communication and Infrastructure ltd.

Kotecha, however, kept receiving bills for the next five months and so he registered another complaint but there was no action.

On June 7 this year, two persons threatened him who asked him not to lodge complaints and asked him to pay the dues.

Kotecha then issued a legal notice to Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, Anil Ambani, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries, Vinod Ambani, Company Secretary, Dilip Derai, Executive Director, Reliance Infocomm and Satyapal Jain, chairman, Reliance Infocomm.

The registry posted the notice on June 9 but there was no reply and further bills kept coming following which Kotecha filed the complaint before additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Girgaum court.

The court took cognisance of the complaint on August 19 and issued summons against the persons named in the complaint under Section 384 read with 34 IPC.