Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has stayed for four weeks a special court’s order directing the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to file an FIR against former SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and five other officials over alleged financial fraud and regulatory violations. The single-judge bench of Justice Shivkumar Dige noted that the order was issued mechanically, without specifying the individual roles of the accused.

The March 1 order by the special court was passed based on a complaint filed by Sapan Shrivastava, a media reporter, alleging large-scale financial fraud, corruption, and regulatory breaches related to the 1994 listing of a company on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The complaint sought an investigation into the role of SEBI officials in the alleged misconduct.

The HC’s stay order was issued in response to petitions filed by Buch, three current whole-time SEBI directors—Ashwani Bhatia, Ananth Narayan G, and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney—along with two BSE officials, Managing Director and CEO Ramamurthy and former Chairman Pramod Agarwal. The petitioners argued that the special court’s decision was illegal and arbitrary, failing to consider the specifics of the case.

The HC has granted the complainant four weeks to file an affidavit in response to the petitions. Meanwhile, the stay order provides temporary relief to the accused, with further hearings expected in the coming weeks as the court reviews the legitimacy of the allegations and the legal basis of the FIR directive.

(With PTI inputs)