RELIEF FOR BUCH!! Bombay High Court Stays FIR Order Against Former SEBI Chief

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday granted a four-week stay on a special court’s order directing the registration of an FIR against former Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and five other officials. The lower court’s directive, issued on March 1, accused them of stock market fraud and regulatory violations linked to a 1994 case. Justice Shivkumar Dige, presiding over the single bench, criticized the special court’s decision as "mechanical," stating it lacked detailed reasoning and failed to specify the roles of the accused.

The High Court’s ruling came in response to petitions filed by Buch, three current SEBI whole-time directors—Ashwani Bhatia, Ananth Narayan G, and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney—and two Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) officials, including Managing Director and CEO Ramamurthy and former Chairman Pramod Agarwal. The petitioners sought to quash the special court’s order, labeling it "illegal and arbitrary." The High Court has now given the complainant, Sapan Shrivastava, a media reporter, four weeks to file an affidavit in response to these pleas. The matter will be revisited after this period.

The special court’s order stemmed from Shrivastava’s complaint, which alleged large-scale financial fraud, corruption, and regulatory breaches tied to the listing of a company on the BSE in 1994. The court had instructed the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to investigate and register an FIR against the accused. However, Justice Dige’s observations have cast doubt on the validity of the initial ruling, emphasizing the need for a more thorough examination of the evidence and accusations.

This development provides temporary relief to Buch and the other officials, who have faced scrutiny over the decades-old allegations.