Bombay HC Breather For Ex-Sebi Chief

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday stayed a special court’s order directing FIR against former Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and five other officials, for four weeks. Former Sebi chief and other officials facing legal tussle for alleged stock market fraud and regulatory violations, noting it was passed mechanically.

A single bench of Justice Shivkumar Dige said the special court order of March 1 also did not attribute any specific role to the accused in the matter.

“After hearing all the parties concerned and after going through the order of the special court, it appears that the order is passed mechanically without going into details and without attributing any specific role to the applicants (Buch and others),” Justice Dige said.

“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 court 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, Bombay Stock Exchange’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Sundararaman Ramamurthy and its former chairman and public interest director Pramod Agarwal.