Sebi: SC to Sebi: Can’t give 6 months more for Adani probe – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will pronounce on Monday orders on Sebi’s plea for six months more time to complete investigation into US short-seller Hindenburg’s report on alleged manipulation of Adani Group shares, leading to their meltdown, after going through the report submitted by an expert panel headed by former SC judge A M Sapre.
“We had given Sebi and the Justice Sapre committee two months to conclude their investigations. Our original remit was for two months. Now to increase it by six months is not appropriate. We are not saying we will not give time. But we will give you three months more to complete the inquiry,” said a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, Justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwala on Friday.
The bench was inclined to extend the time by three months for completion of the probe and repeatedly told the markets regulator to show alacrity in this matter. “There must be some alacrity in this matter. You can’t say you need a minimum of six months. Let there be some alacrity.”
For Sebi, solicitor general Tushar Mehta said, “Genuinely, Sebi has compressed the time needed to complete the investigations to six months. As observed from the annual report of the enforcement division of US SEC, it takes on average 34 months to complete an investigation. They will have to do something proactively in this case.” This indicates that the Sebi has approached its US counterpart for the probe into the Hindenburg report on Adani Group.
Mehta said, “It has been observed that reports are frequently published by activist short sellers like Hindenburg in respect of companies listed in the US. Based on a sample of such cases examined by Sebi, it has been observed that in 13 cases the SEC has acted against the listed companies in the US. The time for such probes taken up by the US SEC, which resulted in action against listed companies, ranged from nine months to five years. I am not saying take this as the benchmark. But Sebi has suggested a realistic time frame of six months to complete the investigations.” The bench said it will go through Justice Sapre committee report during the weekend and on Monday pronounce order on Sebi’s application seeking six-month additional time.
Petitioner’s counsel Prashant Bhushan alleged that Sebi had been investigating Adani Group since 2016 and that it had done nothing despite being a member of International Organisation of Securities Commission, which has an agreement to share every information sought for on foreign investors in the information requisitioning entity.
Mehta said Sebi has already approached IOSCO for relevant information. “We do not know when the information sought for would be given and the time that would be needed to act on that information. That is why we have sought a realistic yet very conservative time frame of six months,” he said.