Sebi: Sebi files plea in Supreme Court, seeks six more months for Adani probe – Times of India

MUMBAI: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Saturday filed an application before the Supreme Court seeking six months’ time to conclude its probe in the Adani-Hindenburg matter. The move comes days before the deadline to submit its report in the matter to the SC ends on May 2.
In its application filed via law firm K J John & Co, Sebi has said it would take time to ascertain Hindenburg Research’s allegations of stock manipulation and accounting fraud against the Adani Group and hence, requests SC to extend time by at least six months.
The capital market regulator has submitted that “as is the case in most probes, every layer of information received often leads to further layers of information that are required, sought, obtained and analysed and this process is particularly time consuming where there is a complex web of transactions”. It also said Hindenburg’s allegations are complex and have many sub-transactions and a rigorous probe would require collation of data from various sources along with detailed analysis, including verification of submissions made by companies. This would require fetching bank statements from domestic and foreign banks.
The SC had directed Sebi to submit its report in the matter within two months.
In a statement, Adani Group said: “We are fully cooperating with Sebi and will continue to provide all our cooperation”. It added, “It is pertinent to note that in the Sebi application filed before the SC, there are no conclusions of any alleged wrong-doing. The Sebi application only cites the allegations made in the short-seller’s report, which are still under probe.”