CG Power case: Gautam Thapar welcomes relief from Sebi

Gautam Thapar, the ousted non-executive chairman of CG Power, on Wednesday welcomed the Sebi order that provides certain relief to him and three other individuals.

Thapar also welcomed the regulator's decision to ask the BSE to appoint an auditor to restate fraud-hit CG Power and Industrial Solutions' books from 2014-15, saying that it would bring out the facts.

On Wednesday, Sebi allowed Thapar and three others to liquidate up to 25 per cent of the value of the securities held by them in the company. However, the watchdog refused to lift the capital market ban imposed on Thapar and three other former officials in a case related to fund diversion.

The three officials are former chief financial officer V R Venkatesh, former directors Madhav Acharya and B Hariharan.

"I have been given some relief. That is good. And so is the Sebi underlining the need to probe the role Sheshadri and KKR in the entire issue.

"Of course, I was not expecting Sebi to take a dramatic turn from its interim order, which was though based on the biased and unprofessional report by Vaish Associates which itself had 23 disclaimers," Thapar told PTI over phone from New Delhi.

It is great that an audit report by Vaish Associates has been trashed by Sebi now as had been done by the NCLT earlier, he noted.

"I am not happy with the order as some of the reliefs sought are yet to be given to me.

"One should also look at what is happening in the courts, especially in the NCLT," he said.

Sebi passed the 174-page confirmatory order on Wednesday. It came after a directive from the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) in February, wherein the watchdog was granted time till March 10 to pass the final order in the CG Power matter.

The officials had moved the tribunal following an interim order passed by Sebi in September 2019, which had barred them from the capital markets for "serious" misstatement of accounts as well as diversion of funds.

Besides, it had ordered forensic audit of the company.

In the interim order, Sebi had said the transactions are prima facie "designed to divert/ siphon off money from CG Power, which rightfully belongs to its shareholders".