Mumbai : In a relief to Mukesh Ambani-led RIL group, the Securities Appellate Tribunal has quashed a Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) order imposing Rs 11 crore fine on Reliance Petroinvestments and has asked the regulator to pass another direction within three months after looking into the matter afresh.
The penalty was imposed by Sebi in May 2013 in an over six-year old insider trading case at that time involving the shares of Reliance Industries’ erstwhile subsidiary IPCL.
After this, Reliance Petroinvestments had approached SAT (Securities Appellate Tribunal), which has now observed that the Sebi order was “passed merely on the basis of presumption without considering the arguments advanced on behalf of the Appellant to rebut the presumption”. SAT said that “impugned order is quashed and set aside and the matter is restored to the file of Adjudicating Officer of Sebi for passing fresh order on merits and in accordance with law”.
Stating that the company has already deposited the amount of penalty with Sebi, SAT said that “the adjudicating officer of Sebi is directed to hear the Appellant and pass fresh order on merits in accordance with law within three months from today. All contentions are kept open.
Pronouncing Reliance Petroinvestments Ltd (RPIL) guilty of violating the insider trading regulations with regard to its dealings in shares of Indian Petrochemicals Corp Ltd (IPCL) in early 2007, Sebi had said in its order that RPIL made profits of over Rs 3.82 crore through these trades.
