Subhash Chandra challenges the SEBI order with SAT

27 Feb 2024 , 01:16 PM

The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has received a challenge from Zee Entertainment Enterprises’ chairman emeritus Subhash Chandra, contesting the Securities & Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) confirmatory order from last year, which prohibited him from having directorships in any listed corporation.

The subject is scheduled for a follow-up hearing on March 8 after SAT requested that SEBI submit its response.

At the Monday’s hearing, SEBI attorney Darius Khambata contended that Chandra is ‘not complying’ with an inquiry of purported money transfers from media companies to companies associated with promoters. ‘SEBI has been writing to him, giving him summons, and seeking information and documents,’ said Khambata. ‘We will put this on record that he (Chandra) has ‘not been cooperating,’ he stated.

In response, Chandra’s attorney, Shyam Mehta, stated that Chandra was also covered by the ruling of SAT, which had previously heard the case and rendered a decision on an appeal brought by Punit Goenka, MD & CEO of Zee Entertainment. 

Mehta further contended that the SEBI ruling was detrimental to the companies he is affiliated with as well as his own reputation.

On August 14, 2023, SEBI issued a confirming decision prohibiting Chandra and his son Goenka from being directors or holding senior positions in any listed business. In October 2023, Goenka obtained a stay order against the SEBI order and moved the SAT in the same month. The appeals panel permitted SEBI to carry doing the probe against Goenka even though it granted him relief. Goenka had also been invited to assist with the SEBI investigation. 

It is important to remember that Chandra made the decision last year not to appeal the SAT decision. 

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