Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has filed a contempt plea in the Supreme Court against the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), alleging "wilful disobedience" of a court ruling to provide it with documents regarding a two-decade-old stock allotment case, the ET reported.
Reliance requested the apex court registrar to seek an urgent hearing of the matter before the Chief Justice of India, NV Ramana, on August 22.
According to the ET report, Sebi was planning to file a review petition against the August 5 Supreme Court order that allowed RIL to access copies of the first and second opinions given by Justice (retired) BN Srikrishna and the two-decade-old report of YH Malegam.
As per reports, after SC's direction, RIL sought documents from Sebi twice but the regulator delayed by saying it was seeking legal advice from senior counsel.
"Being a quasi-judicial body, the constitutional mandate of Sebi is to act fairly, in accordance with the rules prescribed by law. The role of a regulator is to deal with complaints and parties in a fair manner and not to circumvent the rule of law for getting successful convictions. There is a substantive duty on the Regulators to show fairness, in the form of public cooperation and deference," the court had observed on August 5.
These documents relate to a 2002 complaint filed by S Gurumurthy with Sebi alleging RIL associate companies and directors fraudulently allotted shares to entities connected with the promoters.
RIL had moved to the top court after the Bombay High Court had rejected its plea to access these documents. In 2020, Sebi had moved Mumbai's civil and sessions court seeking prosecution, which the court rejected, citing delay in acting on the 2002 complaint.
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