Bombay HC stays order directing FIR against ex-Sebi chief Madhabi Puri Buch in stock market 'fraud' case

NEW DELHI: The Bombay high court on Tuesday stayed a special court's order directing FIR against ex-Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and five other officials for alleged stock market fraud and regulatory violations. The stay to remain in place for four weeks.
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.
"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, according to news agency PTI.
The high court's judgement came on petitions filed by Buch, three current whole-time SEBI directors - Ashwani Bhatia, Ananth Narayan G and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney and two BSE officials - managing director and chief executive officer 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 case stems from a complaint by media reporter Sapan Shrivastava, who alleged large-scale financial fraud and regulatory violations during the 1994 listing of a company on the BSE.
He claimed that SEBI officials facilitated market manipulation by allowing the listing without compliance under the SEBI Act, 1992. SEBI responded to the developments, saying that it would challenge the order through legal means.
The market regulator highlighted that the allegations pertain to events that occurred long before the accused held their current positions. The BSE also dismissed the complaint as "frivolous and vexatious."
Buch, India’s first woman SEBI chief, recently completed her three-year tenure amid controversy, including allegations of conflict of interest linked to Hindenburg Research’s claims about her investment history. She has denied the accusations, saying that her investments predated her SEBI appointment.