The Supreme Court has issued notice against the order by Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) in an appeal filed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) against the NDTV Roy couple for allegedly concealing price the sensitive information from shareholders.
A notice has been issued for listing the matter for hearing next week by the bench comprising Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Justice V Ramasubramanian.
The SAT had ruled that SEBI had put an excessive and disproportionate penalty on Prannoy Roy, Radhika Roy, and others for failing to disclose material information to NDTV shareholders.
The penalty of Rs 27 crore imposed on the Roys and their company for the non-disclosure of loan agreement was reduced to Rs 5 crore by the SAT.
Also, the SEBI order restraining Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy from accessing the securities market was rejected.
The order that Roys could not take up position of Director was found to be totally out of context and not commensurate with the alleged violation.
The loan agreement in the minutes of a Board of Directors meeting was found to be violative of the listing agreement. However, the SAT opined that the penalty of Rs 5 crore imposed was excessive and, therefore, reduced it to Rs 10 lakh.
The promoters of NDTV had filed an appeal against an interim order of the Securities Appellate Tribunal on January 4, 2021, directing the channel to deposit 50 percent of the fine imposed earlier by SEBI.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had stayed the recovery of penalty of Rs 27 crore imposed by SEBI on NDTV promoters Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy, as well as their holding company RRPR Holding Pvt Ltd, for allegedly violating various securities norms by concealing information from shareholders regarding certain loan agreements.
The Tribunal also mentioned that if the Roys deposit 50% of the amount minus interest within four weeks, the balance amount should not be recovered during the pendency of the appeal.
SEBI has imposed a fine of Rs 25 crore on the Roys and RRPR Holding, which needed to be paid jointly and severally for allegedly violating various securities norms by concealing information from shareholders regarding certain loan agreements. Besides, a penalty of Rs 1 crore each was levied on Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy.