We all now know that the Supreme Court outlawed Section 66-A of the Information Technology Act in a recent order. I wrote about the court’s core findings in a column in the Mirror publications last Friday. I would have been remiss in not writing about the court’s rationale in the very same judgement, in refusing to strike down as unconstitutional, a different section of the...
With great power comes great responsibility: SAT
The abuse of extreme powers in financial regulatory laws has been subject matter of litigation for the past two decades – particularly since the mid-1990s when SEBI started using the (then) newly-introduced Section 11B of the SEBI Act, 1992. The power to “issue such directions as deemed fit” is a sweeping and general one. The use of such powers without even...
Resources on the Securities Laws (Amendment) Act, 2014
[One of our readers has helpfully shared various resources in connection with the latest legislative amendments relating to the powers and functions of SEBI, which might be of wider interest] The Securities Laws (Amendment) Act, 2014 received the assent of the President on the 22 August, 2014 and was published in the Gazette of India on 25 August, 2014. The debates from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha...
Consequences of Inaccurate Shareholding Disclosures
Both the SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers Regulations), 2011 (the Takeover Regulations) as well as the SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 1992 (the PIT Regulations) require a timely disclosure of acquisition or change in shareholdings beyond certain thresholds by substantial shareholders and promoters. Such disclosure requirements are also captured in clause...
Supreme Court on “Market Abuse”
In a judgment delivered last Friday, the Supreme Court came down heavily on “market abuse” not just on the case at hand but more generally on the practice to the extent prevalent in India. The case, N. Narayanan v. Adjudicating Officer, SEBI, arose in the form of an appeal from the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) in relation to the appellant who was the whole time director of Pyramid Saimara...
The crisis that SAT is heading towards
On November 1, 2012, this blog had a post on a writ petition relating to the absence of a Presiding Officer in the Securities Appellate Tribunal (“SAT”). I wrote a piece in the Business Standard in my column on November 12, 2012 about how the SAT needs to be handled with care. Since then, some more facts have become apparent. One of the remaining two members of the SAT will...
Exclusion of Jurisdiction of Civil Courts under the SEBI Act
Legally India has made available certain expert witness statements filed before US Courts in the class action litigation concerning Satyam, which was recently settled. One of the witness statements, by Mr. Sandeep Parekh, makes an interesting point; but I am not entirely sure of the tenability in law of that point. Mr. Parekh’s declaration / statement as an expert witness is available here...
Use Ex Parte Powers Abstemiously
An “ad interim, ex parte” order passed by SEBI, directing companies in the Sahara Group not to raise funds by way of placement of their debentures, led to a debate here over interim reliefs granted by courts, after the Allahabad High Court stayed SEBI’s order. The Supreme Court has now refused to stay the stay granted by the Allahabad High Court. Sections 11 and 11B of the SEBI Act, 1992 confer...
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