The Bombay Excessive Courtroom on Wednesday accepted the contentions raised by Subhash Chandra, chairman emeritus of Zee Leisure Enterprises Ltd (ZEE), concerning a writ petition filed by him towards summons issued by the Securities and Trade Board of India (SEBI) on January 12, 2024.
On Wednesday, the excessive courtroom requested Chandra to furnish paperwork sought by the Securities and Trade Board of India (Sebi) in its summons in a fund diversion case.
The courtroom, in its verbal order, mentioned Chandra wanted to reply to the current summons and never the sooner one from 12 January. An in depth order is pending.
Chandra in his plea acknowledged that the Sebi summons didn’t adjust to the provisions of the SEBI Act, contained pre-determined and conclusive allegations, and had been within the nature of a present trigger discover.
He argued that Sebi’s summons contained allegations couched in a language that implied he was responsible and requested the courtroom to declare the summons invalid and illegal. He alleged that the summons had been biased, unfair, arbitrary and predetermined.
Sebi had alleged that Chandra was attempting to cease the investigation as a result of he didn’t reply to the 12 January summons.
In January, Sebi issued a number of summons towards Chandra in its investigation pertaining to the alleged fund diversion case. Nonetheless, Sebi mentioned that Chandra didn’t reply to these summonses.
In his writ petition, Chandra had additionally raised issues pertaining to the prevailing bias on the market regulator’s finish, which had been beforehand noticed by the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT).
Final yr, the Sebi had mentioned its probe confirmed that Rs 200 crore was diverted by way of associated celebration transactions from Zee. Subhash Chandra and CEO Punit Goenka had contested the declare earlier than SAT. It knowledgeable the tribunal {that a} broader investigation was underway because of the complexity of the transactions.
