SEBI plea against SAT order: SC issues notice to DLF

The Supreme Court today sought a response from realty major DLF Ltd on a plea challenging the order of the appellate tribunal quashing SEBI's decision to bar it and its six top executives from capital markets for three years.
A bench of Justices J Chelameshwar and R K Agrawal, which issued notices to DLF and its promoters K P Singh, Pia Singh and Rajiv Singh but refused to stay the order saying there was "no immediate fallout".
Sebi had passed an order in October last year against the DLF and its officials after finding them guilty of "active and deliberate suppression" of material information at the time of its IPO in 2007.

While that order did not include any monetary penalty, the market regulator passed another directive, in the same case, wherein penalties totalling Rs 86 crore were imposed on DLF, its top executives and a host of related persons and entities including housewives of some executives.
In the case, apart from DLF, Chairman K P Singh, his son and daughter, Managing Director T C Goyal, former CFO Ramesh Sanka and Kameshwar Swarup, who was ED-Legal at the time of the company's public offer in 2007, were also barred by SEBI.
After its over four-year probe, SEBI had found that a "case of active and deliberate suppression of any material information so as to mislead and defraud the investors in the securities market in connection with the issue of shares of DLF in its IPO is clearly made out in this case.