Supreme Court Forms Panel, Wants Regulator Report On Adani Row

The Supreme Court today ordered setting up of a six-member committee headed by former Supreme Court judge A M Sapre to look into various regulatory aspects for stock markets, including the recent Adani Group shares crash triggered by the Hindenburg Research’s fraud allegations.

A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwala said the panel will make an overall assessment of the situation and suggest measures to make investors aware as well as strengthen the existing regulatory measures for stock markets.

The bench also directed the centre, financial statutory bodies and the SEBI chairperson to render all cooperation to the panel which will have to submit its report within two months.

Former judges OP Bhat and JP Devdatt are also part of the probe committee.

The court also named Nandan Nilekani, KV Kamath and Somasekharan Sundaresan as three other members of the committee.

While reserving its order, the Supreme Court on February 17 had refused to accept in a sealed cover the Centre’s suggestion on a proposed panel of experts.

Till now four PILs have been filed in the top court on the issue by lawyers M L Sharma, Vishal Tiwari, Congress leader Jaya Thakur and Mukesh Kumar, who claims to be a social activist.

Adani Group stocks have taken a beating on the bourses after the Hindenburg Research made a litany of allegations, including fraudulent transactions and share-price manipulation, against the business conglomerate. The Adani Group has dismissed the charges as lies, saying it complies with all laws and disclosure requirements.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)