The Reliance Dhirubhai Ambani Group (R-ADAG) on Wednesday said an illegal bear cartel had destroyed infrastructure stocks worth a whopping Rs3 lakh crore ($66 billion) in recent days and asked for a thorough probe by concerned agencies. “A series of completely baseless rumours have been circulated yesterday by our corporate rivals. An illegal bear cartel has also destroyed Rs3 lakh crore for infrastructure stocks,” Gautam Doshi, the group's managing director, said.

“We have written to Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and stock exchanges to investigate immediately the concerted effort to destabilise the market and damage investor sentiments,” he told a conference call with investors and journalists.

“Market authorities are equipped with most modern electronic surveillance system. We are confident this deliberate price hammering and manipulation will quickly be exposed,” Doshi said.

The comments immediately lifted the stock prices of Reliance Infra, which was up 10.69 per cent at Rs591.85 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Doshi said the group was also surprised by what he called distorted reporting.

He was referring to certain comments carried by a section of the media attributed to the Institute of Charted Accountants of India (ICAI), and said Reliance Infrastructure had not received any such missive from the institute.

“The institute has simply asked for copies of our audited balance sheets,” he said. This was a public document that was already in circulation among the authorities and 1.5 million shareholders of the company, he added.

He said the institute also wanted to know why the company had decided to adopt a policy of rotational auditors and the group's response in this regard was: It is in line with international best practices, as desired by the corporate affairs ministry.