SEBI’s former chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and five others have gone to the Bombay High Court to have the special court’s direction quashed that directed the police to register an FIR against them for alleged stock market fraud. The court is scheduled to rule on their application on March 4, 2025, and has requested the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) not to take any action till then.
The ACB had sought the FIR on the direction of an ACB court judge, Shashikant Eknathrao, against the former SEBI chairperson and officials, including the BSE CEO Sundararaman Ramamurthy, the former chairman of BSE Pramod Agarwal and three whole time SEBI members Ashwani Bhatia, Ananth Narayan G and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney. The case is based on charges of cheating, fraud, corruption and misuse of office relating to the fraudulent listing of Cals Refineries Ltd on the BSE in 1994.
The complainant, Sapan Shrivastava, a media reporter, accused the officials of round tripping, insider trading and manipulation of stock prices to create a false impression among the investors about the financial health of the company. BSE, however, rejected the claims saying that the accused were not in their respective positions at the time of listing of the company and had no connection with the company.
In response, SEBI announced that it will take necessary legal provisions to appeal the order and also stated that it continues to uphold high standards of regulatory compliance. Likewise, the BSE called the accusations ‘frivolous and vexatious’, and stated that it is committed to maintaining transparency.
Buch became India’s first woman SEBI chief in October 2020 and stepped down recently after serving her three-year term. The legal battle is ongoing and the case is likely to have implications for the Indian stock market regulations and corporate governance.
