Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT): A Two-Member Bench of Justice Tarun Agarwala (Presiding Officer) and Justice M.T. Joshi (Judicial Member) quashed the order passed by the Adjudicating Officer which restrained the appellant from accessing the securities market for three years.
In the present case, the appeal has been filed against the order passed by the Adjudicating Officer which imposed fine and restriction for violation of Regulations 3(a), (b), (c), (d) and 4(2)(d) and (e) of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices relating to Securities Market) Regulations, 2003. It was alleged that the appellant had indulged in fraudulent dealings in the shares of Shreekrishna Biotech Limited. Proceedings under Section 11B were initiated in pursuance of the stated fraudulent dealings by the Whole Time Member (WTM) and a restraining order was passed. For the same fraudulent dealings and for the same investigation period the Adjudication proceedings were also initiated under Section 15I and on the same charges the impugned order was passed. The appellate had filed an appeal before the present tribunal. The tribunal had set aside the order of the WTM and the appeal was allowed.
The Tribunal, upon perusal of the issues involved in the present appeal, stated that since it had already allowed the appeal of the appellant against the order of the WTM and the issue involved being the same as admitted by the respondents as well, it does not see any reason for the continuation of the impugned order. It also stated that as no factual controversy is involved, the appeal is being decided at the admission stage itself and the impugned order of WTM is quashed. [Vipul Mohan Joshi v. SEBI, 2019 SCC OnLine SAT 251, decided on 30-12-2019]
