Madhabi Puri Buch Gets Relief As Bombay HC Stays FIR Order Against Ex-Sebi Chief, Says FIR Order 'Mechanical'
The Bombay High Court says the trial court order to register an FIR against former Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch was "mechanical".
Ex-Sebi Chief Madhabi Puri Buch Hearing: Providing big relief to Madhabi Puri Buch, the Bombay High Court on Tuesday stayed for four weeks the special court’s order directing FIR against the former Sebi chairperson and five other officials for alleged stock market fraud and regulatory violations. The court said the trial court order was “mechanical".
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.
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“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.
The HC’s judgement came on petitions filed by Buch, three current whole-time SEBI directors – Ashwani Bhatia, Ananth Narayan G and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney – BSE Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Sundararaman Ramamurthy and its former chairman and public interest director Pramod Agarwal.
The pleas had sought quashing of the order passed by the special court directing the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to register an FIR against them pertaining to certain allegations of fraud committed in 1994 while listing a company on the BSE.
The pleas said the order was illegal and arbitrary.
The special court had passed the order on the complaint filed by Sapan Shrivastava, a media reporter, seeking investigation into the alleged offences committed by the accused, involving large scale financial fraud, regulatory violations and corruption.
A special court had on Saturday directed the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to register an FIR against former Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and five other officials in connection with alleged stock market fraud and regulatory violations.
“There is prima facie evidence of regulatory lapses and collusion, requiring a fair and impartial probe," the special ACB court judge, Shashikant Eknathrao Bangar, said in the order passed on Saturday.
India’s first woman Sebi chief Buch, who faced conflict of interest allegations by the US-based short-seller Hindenburg and also political heat thereafter, completed her three-year tenure on Friday.
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