The Supreme Court on Wednesday will deliver its judgment on a batch of petitions seeking court-monitored probe into allegations made by US-based firm Hindenburg Research against the Adani Group regarding violations of stock market, ANI reported.
In January last year, Hindenburg in a report had alleged brazen ‘accounting fraud’ and ‘stock manipulation’ by the Adani Group. The business conglomerate had rejected the report as ‘unresearched’ and ‘maliciously mischievous’.
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The report had triggered a massive rout of Adani Group stocks that lost over $140 billion in days and forced the cancellation of a ₹20,000 crore share sale.
In November last year, the apex court had observed that it will not be proper for it to appoint a special investigation team (SIT) to look into the allegations of violations of minimum public shareholding norms by Adani Group firms without there being evidence of lapses by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) which is investigating the matter. The court while reserving its judgment said that it cannot order a probe based on only certain media reports and without hearing the entities impacted by the orders.
“Where is the material before us to start doubting Sebi? Sebi is a statutory body exclusively entrusted with investigating stock market manipulation. Is it proper for the highest court of the land to say without any proper material that ‘we don’t trust Sebi, and we will form our own SIT’? This has to be done with a great deal of calibration,” a bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud had told petitioners’ lawyer Prashant Bhushan.
