Bombay HC stays special court order directing FIR against Buch, five others

The court said order passed 'mechanically', adjourns the matter for four weeks

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday stayed a special court order that directed the state’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to file a first information report (FIR) against Madhabi Puri Buch, former chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), three current whole-time members of the market regulator, and two officials from the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) over alleged stock market fraud and regulatory violations.

 

“It prima facie appears that learned Judge has passed the order mechanically, without going into details and without attributing any specific role to the applicant hence impugned order is stayed till the further orders,” Justice SG Dige, presiding over the case, observed.

 

The matter has been adjourned for four weeks, allowing the petitioner, Sapan Shrivastava, time to file a reply.

 

Representing the Sebi officials, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta highlighted that the court had previously found the petitioner guilty of filing frivolous petitions, imposed penalties on multiple occasions, and even directed the filing of an FIR against him for extortion.

 

Mehta further pointed out that Cals Refineries was listed on the BSE in 1994, while the petitioner’s allegations targeted current officials who were not involved at the time.

 

Senior counsel Amit Desai, representing BSE Managing Director and CEO Sundararaman Ramamurthy and former chairman Pramod Agarwal, argued that filing frivolous pleas had become a “pastime” for the petitioner.

 

Desai contended that the special court failed to examine the petitioner or conduct a proper inquiry into what he described as a “malafide” matter.

 

Desai also noted that while Sebi, in response to an RTI filed by the petitioner, had stated that the No Objection Certificate (NOC) for the listing of Cals Refineries was unavailable, the petitioner falsely claimed that no NOC had been granted.

 

Cals Refineries went into liquidation in 2019, and trading of its shares has been suspended since August 2019. 

 

However, the petitioner filed a complaint on Sebi’s SCORES portal only in July 2023 and wrote to the Sebi chairperson in March 2024.  

 

Arguing on his own behalf, Shrivastava alleged that the regulator lacks information on the NOC and details of several other companies listed on the exchanges.