Bombay High Court to hear Sebi plea in Cals Refineries case on March 4

The Bombay High Court (HC) on Monday directed the state’s anti-corruption bureau (ACB) to not act on an order of a special court, which sought filing of an FIR against Madhabi Puri Buch, former chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), along with the regulator’s three whole-time members, and two officials of the BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange).

 

The matter pertains to alleged irregularities in granting listing permission to a company on the BSE in 1994.

 

The application by litigant Sapan Shrivastava alleged fraudulent listing of Cals Refineries on the stock exchange in connivance with the regulatory authorities.

 

It was listed for urgent hearing in the high court on Monday before a single-judge Bench of Justice S G Dige.

 

The matter will now be heard on Tuesday, until when the ACB has been directed not to file the FIR.

 

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta represented Buch and the Sebi officials while senior counsel Amit Desai appeared on behalf of BSE’s former chairman Pramod Agarwal and managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) Sundararaman Ramamurthy.

 

In its statement on Sunday, Sebi said that the officials were not holding their respective positions at the relevant point of time and the court had allowed the application without issuing any notice or granting any opportunity to the regulator to place the facts on record.

 

“The applicant is known to be a frivolous and habitual litigant, with previous applications being dismissed by the court, with imposition of costs in some cases,” the regulator had stated.

 

BSE, too, had called the application “frivolous and vexatious in nature.”

 

Trading in Cals Refinieries has been suspended since August 2017.

 

Earlier in 2014, the market regulator had barred several directors of the company for 10 years from the securities market in irregularities observed in the issuances of Global Depository Receipts (GDRs). Further, in 2021, an order by an adjudicating officer imposed a penalty of Rs 15 crore on the company.

 

On the other hand, the petitioner Shrivastava was fined Rs 5 lakh by the Bombay HC in 2019 for filing “frivolous petition masked as a public interest petition.”

 

He also faced Rs 25,000 fine by the Bombay HC court in August 2019 in a separate petition against Sebi.