SC junks review plea against judgment on Adani-Hindenburg issue

SC junks review petition in Adani-Hindenburg case

The Supreme Court on May 8 dismissed a petition filed by Anamika Jaiswal seeking a review of its January 3 judgment that declined to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the allegations against the Adani group over allegations by Hindenburg research.

The order, which was made available on July 15, said "Having perused the review petition, there is no error apparent on the face of the record. The review petition is, therefore, dismissed."

The order was passed by a bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and justices J.B.Pardiwala and Manjor Mishra.

The petition, filed in February, claimed that there are errors in the judgment and states that Jaiswal's lawyer, Prashant Bhushan, has received new material that would satisfy the court to review its order.

Challenging the court's conclusion that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) did not fail in its regulatory duties, the plea said, "There are many instances through which SEBI's regulatory failures are readily apparent. Such failures have eventually contributed to alleged regulatory contraventions and statutory violations."

According to the plea, the amendments made to the Foreign Portfolio Investor (FPI) Regulations by SEBI in 2018 and 2019 continuously and decisively diluted them in significant ways. The plea said: "SEBI, in its status report, has only updated the status of the 24 investigations as complete or incomplete and failed to disclose any findings or details on action taken. It cannot be concluded that there has been no regulatory failure unless the findings of the SEBI investigations are publicly reported."

On January 3, the Supreme Court rejected the demand for transferring the probe into allegations of violations of securities laws by Adani group companies to a special investigation team, in a relief for the conglomerate almost a year after the Hindenburg Research came out with a report.

The Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud-led bench said it can't interfere in SEBI's domain. The court also dismissed allegations of conflict of interest against the panel it had set up in March 2023 to look into the claims made in the Hindenburg report. The court also asked the government and SEBI to check whether short selling of stocks following the Hindenburg report violated local laws.

In January 2023, Hindenburg Research, an American short-seller, accused the power-to-port conglomerate of "brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud". The allegations were denied by the Adani group.

After receiving a string of public interest litigations (PILs) seeking a probe into the accusations, the top court set up an expert panel in March to look into the issue.