In his second e-mail message in as many days to all Reliance employees, Anil, who is locked in a ownership feud with his elder brother Mukesh Ambani, said both brothers were "co-creators" of the business empire.

"I am personally saddened, like all of you, at the developments of the last two weeks, and I thought I would share with you some of my feelings," he said in his mail, a copy of which was made available to reporters.

"As already communicated, I will not comment on any issues at this stage, and may do so only at an appropriate time, if necessary," said the younger Ambani sibling.

Anil said for over 20 years, Mukesh and he had the opportunity to work with their father and Reliance group patriarch Dhirubhai Ambani to be "co-creators" in building the company.

"It has been a journey marked by successive milestones of togetherness. We became executive directors, joint managing directors, and managing directors at the same time," he said.

Anil, 45, said after Dhirubhai's death in July 2002, he had the "privilege" to propose Mukesh's name as chairman and managing director of the diversified Reliance Industries Ltd.

"And I received his support to be appointed as vice chairman and managing director."

Rumours of a rift between the two brothers, Mukesh and Anil, who control the operations of the Reliance group with annual sales of Rs.800 billion ($17.5 billion), had been raging for the last few months.

Reliance Industries has interests in a wide spectrum of industrial sectors like petrochemicals, refinery, and telecom, and accounts for significant weightage in the overall market barometer.

Shares of Reliance had gone into a freefall last week after it was first reported by private TV channel CNBC TV18 that Mukesh had admitted to an ownership rift with his younger sibling Anil.

The shares Monday gained 1.2 percent to touch Rs.509.80 after shaking off early weakness on large-scale institutional buying. 

Reliance Energy, the power utility arm of Reliance Industries, too ended 1.1 percent higher at Rs.555.30, a day ahead of the company's board meeting to consider resignations of six directors amid the ownership controversy.

Reliance Energy, a power utility arm of diversified Reliance Industries, said Monday the company's board would meet Tuesday to discuss the resignation of the directors.

Reliance Energy, involved in generation, transmission and distribution of power, informed the Bombay Stock Exchange Thursday the six directors had resigned. It did not give any reason.

--Indo-Asian News Service