Non-bailable warrants against MDs of 32 firms for 'ignoring' SC order

The Supreme Court (SC) has issued non-bailable warrants (NBWs) against the managing directors (MDs) of 32 companies, including the erstwhile promoters of Bank of Rajasthan (BoR), for repeated failure to deposit the penalty of Rs 5 lakh imposed on them by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

During the last hearing in September, the SC had asked Sebi to publish warnings in newspapers and inform the offenders to deposit the said penalties, failing which they would be arrested. Of the 118 companies fined, 32 had not deposited the fine amount.

“Despite this, insofar as the remaining companies are concerned, nobody has come forward to pay the amount of penalty as has been ordered by our judgment dated October 26, 2016. Issue NBWs to the MD of each of these companies, returnable after four weeks,” the SC said in its order.

In 2013, Sebi had fined nearly 118 entities Rs 30 crore, including the promoters of BoR. A year later, the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) upheld the penalty of Rs 4 crore each on BoR’s promoters, Sanjay Kumar Tayal and Pravin Kumar Tayal. In separate orders, it also upheld orders against other entities.

Though in 2016, the Tayals had moved the apex court challenging the SAT’s orders, the top court had dismissed their plea and asked them to deposit the money either forthwith or within two weeks. The matter pertains to the alleged violation of takeover norms by the Tayals in BoR through numerous entities. The joint probe by Sebi and the Reserve Bank of India eventually led to the merger of the bank with ICICI Bank. Apart from the Tayals, Sebi had in 2013 also imposed fines on 10 promoter group companies of the bank for fraudulent practices used to manipulate the stock market between 2007 and 2009.