Bombay HC extends stay on order directing FIR against ex-Sebi chief Buch, 5 others

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday extended the interim stay on a special courts order directing FIR against exSebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and five other officials for alleged stock market fraud and regulatory violationsThe HC last month granted the interim stay on the special courts order noting it was passed mechanically and no specific role was attributed to the accusedOn Tuesday Justice Shivkumar Dige noted that the original complainant in the case has filed an affidavit and granted time to Buch and others to go through the sameThe interim relief granted earlier shall continue until further orders Justice Dige said posting the matter for further hearing on May 7Last month Buch three current wholetime directors of the Securities and Exchange Board of India Sebi Ashwani Bhatia Ananth Narayan G and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney Bombay Stock Exchanges Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Sundararaman Ramamurthy and BSEs former chairman and public interest director Pramod Agarwal moved the HC against the special court orderThe pleas sought quashing of the order passed by the special court which directed the AntiCorruption Bureau ACB to register an FIR against them pertaining to certain allegations of fraud committed in 1994 while listing a company on the BSEThe petitions claimed the special court order was manifestly erroneous patently illegal and passed without jurisdictionThe order by the special court was passed on a complaint filed by Sapan Shrivastava a media reporter seeking investigation into the alleged offences committed by the accused involving large scale financial fraud regulatory violations and corruptionSpecial ACB court judge S E Bangar in his March 1 order noted there was prima facie evidence of regulatory lapses and collusion requiring a fair and impartial probeThe ACB court also said it will monitor the probe and sought a status report within 30 daysThe allegations in the complaint pertained to fraudulent listing of a company on the stock exchange in 1994 with the active connivance of regulatory authorities particularly the Sebi without compliance under the SEBI Act 1992 and rules and regulations thereunderThe Sebi last month said the application by Shrivastava sought directions for the police to register an FIR and investigate into the alleged irregularities in granting listing permission to a company on the BSE in 1994 without complying with provisions of the SEBI Act 1992 SEBI ICDR Regulations 2018 and the SEBI LODR Regulations 2015Even though these officials were not holding their respective positions at the relevant point of time the court allowed the application without issuing any notice or granting any opportunity to SEBI to place the facts on record the market regulator said in a statementThe BSE had said the application sought directions for registration of an FIR and investigations into alleged irregularities in the listing of Cals Refineries Ltd at BSE in 1994The officials named in the application were not in their respective positions at the time of listing and were not connected with the company at all it said adding the application is frivolous and vexatious in natureThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever