SAT quashes SEBI order against Mukesh Ambani
The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has quashed the markets regulator’s 2021 order against Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) managing director Mukesh Ambani, the Navi Mumbai Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and the Mumbai SEZ in a case related to alleged manipulative trades in shares of the erstwhile Reliance Petroleum Ltd.
In January 2021, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) imposed a penalty of Rs. 25 crore on RIL and Rs. 15 crore on Ambani. It had also asked the Navi Mumbai SEZ to pay a penalty of Rs. 20 crore.
The case pertains to the sale and purchase of Reliance Petroleum shares in the cash and futures segments in November 2007. Subsequently, RIL decided to sell a nearly 5% stake in Reliance Petroleum, a listed subsidiary that was later merged with RIL in 2009.
SAT bench said it was not possible for the Navi Mumbai SEZ and Mumbai SEZ to have known that RIL would sell shares in the cash segment in November 2007, and that RIL would take positions in the futures segment through its agents, as alleged by one of Sebi’s whole-time members in 2021.
