The Bombay High Court on Tuesday ordered a stay for four weeks a
special court order seeking a First Information Report (FIR) against former
Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) chief Madhabi Puri Buch and five
others for alleged stock market fraud and regulatory violations.
The court stated that the "order was passed
mechanically." The case pertains to the 1994 Cals Refineries stock listing fraud case.
On March 3, Buch and three whole-time directors of Sebi-Ashwani
Bhatia, Ananth Narayan G, and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney—and two senior BSE
officials, Pramod Agarwal, and Sundararaman Ramamurthy, moved the Bombay High
Court, seeking to quash an order passed by a special court of the
Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), which directed the police to register an FIR
against them.
The order was passed by a single bench of Justice Shivkumar
Dige, who noted that the special court's March 1 order was passed mechanically
without going into the details. He further said that it was passed without
attributing any specific role to the persons accused.
The court said that the special court's order seeking an FIR was
passed on the complaint filed by Sapan Shrivastava, a media reporter, who
sought investigation into the alleged offence committed by the accused.
"Hence,
the order is stayed till the next date. Four weeks is given to the complainant
in the case (Sapan Shrivastava) to file his affidavit in reply to the
petitions," the high court noted.