The Securities and Trade Board of India (Sebi) Monday knowledgeable the Supreme Court docket that it had not probed any Adani Group of corporations since 2016 as alleged by a few of the petitioners who’ve sought a probe into the claims by the Hindenburg Analysis on the group.
In a rejoinder affidavit, the market regulator mentioned the rivalry by the petitioners of their reply affidavit “has no relation and/or connection to the problems referred to and/or arising out of the Hindenburg report”.
It added that “the matter referred to” within the reply affidavit of the petitioners “pertains to the issuance of International Depository Receipts by 51 Indian listed corporations in respect of which investigation was performed” and mentioned, “nevertheless, no listed firm of Adani Group was a part of the…51 corporations”.
The Sebi affidavit identified that “pursuant to completion of the investigation, acceptable enforcement actions had been taken on this matter. Therefore, the allegation that it has been “investigating Adani since 2016 is factually baseless” and the “reliance sought to be positioned on the investigation pertaining to GDRs is wholly misplaced”.
The market regulator mentioned that “within the context of the investigation into Minimal Public Shareholding, (MPS) norms, SEBI has already approached eleven abroad regulators underneath the Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MMOU) with Worldwide Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO” and “numerous request for data was made to those regulators. The primary request to abroad Regulators was made as early as on October 6, 2020”.
SEBI identified that it had submitted “an in depth word…to the professional committee constituted by” the SC within the wake of the Hindenburg Analysis report and that it covers “the steps taken, responses, obtained and the present standing of data gathering underneath the MMOU of IOSCO”.
It mentioned that “in respect of the investigation/examination regarding 12 transactions referred to within the Hindenburg Report prima facie it’s famous that these transactions are extremely complicated and have many such transactions throughout quite a few jurisdictions and a rigorous investigation of those transactions would require collation of knowledge/data from numerous sources together with financial institution statements from a number of home in addition to worldwide banks, monetary statements of onshore and offshore entities concerned within the transactions and contracts and agreements, if any, entered between the entities together with different supporting paperwork. Due to this fact, the evaluation must be performed on the paperwork obtained from numerous providers earlier than conclusive findings could be arrived at”.
The affidavit added that “the applying for extension of time filed by Sebi is supposed to make sure carriage of justice, holding in thoughts the curiosity of traders and the securities market since any incorrect or untimely conclusion of the case is useless with out full information materials on report wouldn’t serve the ends of justice and therefore could be legally untenable”.
Sebi has sought six extra months time from the SC to finish its probe into the allegations levelled within the Hindenburg report. Opposing this, one of many petitioners had mentioned that the market regulator had been probing Adani since 2016.