A Writ Petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking investigation against the Adani Group in the wake of a report published by US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research, which alleged that the ports-to-power conglomerate had inflated the share prices of its companies through manipulations and malpractices.
Filed by Congress leader Jaya Thakur, the plea further sought probe into the role of the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and the State Bank of India (SBI) for allegedly investing ‘huge’ amount of public money in the FPO of Adani Enterprises at the rate of Rs 3200 per share when the prevailing market rate of the shares was around Rs 1800 per share in the secondary market.
Alleging that industrialist Gautam Adani and his associates had ‘swindled’ lakhs of crores of ‘public money,’ the petitioner sought probe by investigating agencies like CBI, ED, DRI, SEBI, RBI and SFIO under the supervision and monitoring of a sitting judge of the Supreme Court.
On Monday, the Supreme Court had conducted hearing on two PILS seeking investigation against the Hindenburg Research for causing stock market losses through short-selling.
The Central government told the Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice P.S. Narasimha and Justice J.B. Pardiwala yesterday that it was willing to form a committee to analyse whether the regulatory framework needed modification for protection of Indian investors.
The Apex Court directed Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Union of India, to prepare a remit of the committee by tomorrow.
The top court of the country will now hear the two petitions on February 17.
One of the PILs filed by Tiwari sought constitution of a committee under the chairmanship of a retired Supreme Court Judge to investigate the contents of the Hindenburg Research Report.
Another petition filed by Advocate M.L. Sharma sought to declare ‘short-selling’ as an offence of fraud. The plea urged the Apex Court to direct probe against Nathan Anderson, founder of Hindenburg, for ‘exploiting’ innocent investors via short selling under the ‘garb’ of artificial crashing.