MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has stayed for four weeks the lower court's orders directing the state’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to file FIRs against former SEBI chief Madhabi Puri-Buch, three current whole-time members of the regulator, and two top officials of the BSE for alleged stock market fraud and regulatory violations.
Puri-Buch, SEBI, and the BSE approached the high court on Monday, seeking an urgent hearing before Justice Dige, who had directed the ACB not to act on the lower court’s order until Tuesday.
A single bench of Justice Shivkumar Dige said the special court order of March 1 was passed mechanically without going into details and without attributing any specific role to the accused.
"Hence, the order is stayed till next date. Four weeks time is given to the complainant in the case (Sapan Shrivastava) to file his affidavit in reply to the petitions," the HC said.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta represented Buch and SEBI officials, while Amit Desai appeared for BSE’s former chairman Pramod Agarwal and managing director and chief executive Sundararaman Ramamurthy.
The defendant, Sapan Shrivastava, personally argued his case.
The matter pertains to alleged irregularities in granting listing permission to Bengal-based Cals Refineries on the BSE back in December 1994.
The company was barred from trading in 2017 and went into liquidation in June 2019. Shrivastava had alleged fraudulent listing of Cals Refineries with the active connivance of regulatory authorities.
Last Saturday—just a day after Puri-Buch demitted office—the ACB court judge SE Bangar ordered the filing of FIRs against Puri-Buch, three of the four whole-time members of SEBI—Ashwani Bhatia, Ananth Narayan G, and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney—along with former BSE chairman Pramod Agarwal and the current BSE chief executive Sundararaman Ramamurthy for allegedly colluding with the promoters of Cals Refineries.