 "Adani-Hindenburg saga: Plea cites conflict of interest, seeks new SC panel")
A petitioner in the Adani-Hindenburg case in the Supreme Court on Monday filed an application, saying that three members of the court-appointed expert panel — O P Bhatt, K V Kamath, and Somashekhar Sundaresan had a potential “conflict of interest” in the matter. The application, filed by law student and petitioner Anamika Jaiswal, has asked for a fresh expert committee consisting of experts from the fields of finance, law, and stock markets, with “impeccable integrity and who have no conflict of interest in the outcome of this matter”.
The petitioner has told the court that former State Bank of India (SBI) chairman O P Bhatt, one of the members of the committee, is chairman of Greenko, a renewable energy company in partnership with Adani Group.
“Since March 2022 Greenko and Adani Group are working in close partnership to provide energy to Adani Group’s facilities in India. Greenko issued a press release dated March 14, 2022, regarding their partnership,” the application reads.
The petitioner further stated Bhatt was examined by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in March 2018 in a case of alleged wrongdoing in disbursing loans to Vijay Mallya, former liquor baron and fugitive economic offender. Mallya has been accused of defrauding banks, including SBI, of $1.2 billion.
“It is submitted that Mr OP Bhatt served as the SBI chairman between 2006 and 2011 when the majority of these loans were advanced to Mallya’s companies. (The) CBI has alleged that the SBI-led consortium of lenders did not conduct any ‘forensic audit’ despite being aware of the ‘poor financial health’ of Mallya’s companies,” the petitioner submitted.
As regards Kamath, the petitioner stated he figured in the CBI FIR in the ICICI Bank fraud case, which relates to Chanda Kocchar, managing director and chief executive officer of the bank from 2009 to 2018.
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The application said the CBI had alleged that Kocchar and her family received various kickbacks over her tenure in lieu of loans to the Videocon group, and many of them turned into non-performing assets.
“Kamath was the non-executive chairman of the bank when some of those loans were approved and a member of the committee that sanctioned/approved the loans,” Jaiswal said. The petitioner said Sundaresan also had a conflict of interest in the matter because he had been a lawyer representing Adani before various forums including the board of the Securities and Exchange Board of India. Based on these submissions, the petitioner has asked for a fresh expert committee.
“The petitioner respectfully submits that in (the) light of the above, there is an apprehension that the present expert committee would fail to inspire confidence among the people of the country. It is therefore respectfully prayed, a fresh expert committee may be constituted by this Hon’ble Court with experts from the field of finance, law and stock market with impeccable integrity, and who have no conflict of interest in the outcome of the instant matter,” the application said.
The next hearing of the case is likely on October 13.
The Supreme Court on March 2 had formed the expert committee of six members headed by a retired judge to review regulatory mechanisms and protect investor interests in the light of the report by American short-seller Hindenburg Research against Adani Group.
The committee consisted of Bhatt, Justice J P Devadhar (retired), Infosys founder Nandan Nilakeni, Kamath, and Sundaresan as members. Former Supreme Court Judge A M Sapre headed the committee.
The expert panel on May 6 in its report had said it did not find any regulatory failure on the part of Sebi on the way it had dealt with the affairs at Adani Group.
On the allegation of stock-price manipulation at Adani Group companies, the committee had said there was no pattern of artificial trading or wash trades and no coherent pattern of abusive trading had come to light. The expert panel, however, noted some entities took short positions prior to the publication of the Hindenburg report and profited from squaring off their positions as the stock prices of Adani Group companies crashed after the report. These entities are currently being investigated by Sebi, the report said.