Bombay High Court extended the interim stay on a Mumbai Sessions Special Court’s order directing an FIR against former SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch. File
| Photo Credit: PTI
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday (April 2, 2025) extended the interim stay on a Mumbai Sessions Special Court’s order directing an FIR against former Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and five others over allegations of stock market fraud and breachers of regulatory norms.
A Single Bench judge, Justice Shivkumar Dige, posted the matter for further hearing on May 7, 2025, and observed, “The interim relief granted earlier shall continue until further orders.”
On March 3, 2025, the High Court asked the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) not to act on a March 1, 2025, Special Court’s order to register an FIR against the former SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and five others, until March 4, 2025, the date, High Court agreed to hear the matter.
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On March 4, 2025, the High Court stayed a Mumbai Special Court order for four weeks that directed the ACB to register an F.I.R. against the former SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and five other SEBI and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) officials in an alleged stock market fraud, regulatory violations, and corruption linked to the listing of a company in 1994.
A Single Bench Judge, Justice Shivkumar Dige, then observed that prima facie, the Special Court’s order on March 1, 2025, was passed mechanically without going into details or attributing any specific role to the applicants.
“After hearing all the parties, it appears that the judge has passed the order mechanically without going to details and without attributing any role to the applicants. 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 judge had said then.
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In a detailed order dated March 1, Special ACB court judge Shashikant Eknathrao Bangar observed, “The allegations disclose a cognizable offense, necessitating an investigation. There is prima facie evidence of regulatory lapses and collusion, requiring a fair and impartial probe. The inaction by law enforcement and SEBI necessitates judicial intervention under Section 156(3) CrPC.”
Sapan Shrivastava, 47, a legal reporter from Dombivali in Maharashtra’s Thane district has named Ms. Buch, as well as SEBI’s current whole-time members Ashwani Bhatia, Ananth Narayan G., and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney; and BSE officials Pramod Agarwal, and Sundararaman Ramamurthy in his complain and sought registering of FIR and an investigation into alleged large-scale financial fraud, regulatory violations, and corruption.
The charges pertain to the alleged fraudulent listing of a company, Cals Refineries Ltd, on the stock exchange in 1994, with the active connivance of regulatory authorities, particularly SEBI, without compliance under the SEBI Act, 1992. The complainant contended that SEBI officials failed in their statutory duty, facilitated market manipulation, and enabled corporate fraud by allowing the listing of a company that did not meet the prescribed norms.
Cals Refineries was suspended from trading on the stock exchange since 2019, according to data on the BSE website.
SEBI officials, in a statement, said that the market regulator would initiate appropriate legal steps to challenge the Special court’s order and that it remained committed to ensuring due regulatory compliance in all matters.
In a separate statement, the BSE called the application “frivolous and vexatious in nature”.
Published – April 02, 2025 07:40 am IST
