Priya Gour
Published on: 22nd August, 2022 at 18:32 IST
Reliance Industries filed a contempt plea against the Security Exchange Board of India (SEBI) before the Supreme Court, alleging “wilful disobedience” in a two-decade old stock allotment case.
In the two-decade old case, the Supreme Court on August 5 directed SEBI to share the three documents related to the opinion given by Justice (Retired) BN Srikrishna and the report of YH Malegaon.
The order on August 5 had been ruled in favour of reliance on accessing the documents. SEBI plans to file a review petition in the apex court against this order.
S. Gurumurthy had filed a complaint in 2002 with SEBI against Reliance, its associate companies, and directors for the fraudulent allotment of 120 million equity shares to entities having connections with their promoters.
SEBI failed to submit the copies to reliance even after the Supreme court ruling on the grounds of seeking advice from their legal counsel.
The petitioner stated that in spite of repeated communication and orders from the apex court, SEBI has failed to submit the requested documents, which is a disobedience of the order of the Hon’ble Court. SEBI, a regulator, is conducting itself in a manner that is against the rule of law.
Taking into account the 2002 complaint, SEBI had issued a show-cause notice to the promoters of the reliance on February 24, 2011, alleging violation of takeover regulations.
The SEBI Special Court rejected the plea for the prosecution of the company on the grounds of delay in acting on the 2002 complaint.
After the rejection of the plea by the SEBI Special Court, SEBI moved the plea before the Bombay High Court. Reliance also approached the HC seeking access to the three documents it was relying upon.
The plea was rejected, consequently Reliance approached the apex court, which ruled in its favour.