The Supreme Court has rejected the batch of pleas filed demanding an independent probe in fraud allegations against the Adani Group of Companies. The top court pronounced that there are no grounds to transfer probe from SEBI to SIT.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India was to deliver its final verdict on the Adani-Hindenburg Case which it had reserved in November, 2023. The verdict in this case, which was being heard by the CJI DY Chandrachud-led Bench, has been delivered and the apex court has refused to set-up SIT Probe in the case and has said that it will not interfere with the ongoing Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Probe. Know all the details about the court proceedings..
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SC Delivers Final Verdict In Adani-Hindenburg Case
As mentioned earlier, the Supreme Court of India has delivered its final verdict in the Adani-Hindenburg Case. The Chief Justice of India highlighted two major points during the pronouncement of the judgement, the first being that the power of this court to enter the regulatory framework of SEBI is limited and secondly, no valid grounds raised to direct SEBI to revoke its amendments on FPI and LODR regulations. Therefore, the regulations do not suffer from any infirmities. The CJI has further said that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has completed investigation in 20 out of 22 matters and taking into account the assurance of Solicitor General, the court has directed the SEBI to complete the investigation in the other two cases within 3 months.
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No Ground To Transfer Investigation From SEBI To SIT: SC
The Supreme Court holds that there is no ground to transfer the investigation from SEBI to SIT. The top court has further said that the report of OCCPR cannot be taken into account to doubt the SEBI investigation; reliance on OCCPR report is rejected and reliance on a third party organisation report without any verification cannot be relied upon as a proof. Establishing that there is no ground for transfer of case, the Supreme Court rejected the arguments of petitioners regarding conflict of interest on the part of the members of the Expert Committee.
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The CJI has further said that the government of India and SEBI shall take into consideration the recommendations of the committee to strengthen interest of the Indian investors. “The power to transfer investigation must be exercised in exceptional circumstances, such powers cannot be exercised in the absence of cogent justifications and reliance on newspaper reports and third party organisations to question the statutory regulator does not inspire confidence. They can be treated as inputs but not conclusive evidence to doubt SEBI probe,” said CJI DY Chandrachud.
Rejecting the batch of pleas filed, the CJI concluded by saying that public interest jurisprudence was developed to provide access to ordinary citizens and so, petitions which lack adequate research and rely on unsubstantiated reports cannot be accepted.
