The Supreme Court on Thursday formed a 6-member committee headed by a retired judge Abhay Manohar Sapre to provide an overall assessment of the causal factors which led to the volatility in the securities market in the recent past.
It will also examine whether there was any regulatory failure while dealing with the alleged contravention of laws pertaining to the securities market in relation to the Adani Group or other companies.
It will further suggest measures to strengthen the statutory framework and take steps for the protection of investors. The committee has been asked to submit its report in a sealed cover to the Supreme Court within two months.The constitution of the committee does not divest the SEBI of its responsibility of conducting an investigation into the volatility in the security markets.Apart from Justice Sapre, the other members of the committee will be O.P. Bhat, Justice J.P. Devadhar (retired), K.V. Kamat, Nandan Nilekani and Somasekhar Sundaresan, who are experts in their respective domains.Justice Sapre, who will head the committee, was part of the Constitution Bench that unanimously held that the Right to Privacy was a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution. Bhat is a former Chairperson of the State Bank of India and the Indian Banks’ Association. He is on the board of independent directors of various multinationals such as TCS, Tata and Hindustan Lever. Justice Devadhar has a Mumbai link: He received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in law from the University of Bombay and started his practice in the Bombay High Court in 1977. Kamath has served as Chairperson of Infosys and a non-executive Chairperson of ICICI Bank. Nilekani, of course, is the co-founder and Chairman of Infosys Technologies Limited. Sundaresan is a noted corporate lawyer and recently the Supreme Court reiterated its proposal to elevate him as a judge of the Bombay High Court. He graduated from Government Law College in 1996 and started as a journalist before taking up practice.
A bench of Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, and Justices P.S. Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala delivered the order on a batch of petitions filed by Delhi advocate M L Sharma, advocate Vishal Tiwari, MP Congress leader Jaya Thakur and one Ahamika Jaiswal.The Hindenburg report – the subject matter of the probe -- had alleged that the Adani Group manipulated its share prices and failed to disclose transactions with related parties, in contravention of the SEBI regulations.
