Adani-Hindenburg probe: Supreme Court postpones hearing to May 15

A three-member bench headed by CJI DY Chandrachud today said that SEBI's request time extension to conduct a deeper probe into the Adani-Hindenburg matter will be granted but the request for six months will be crunched to three months.SEBI was given two months to look into transactional irregularities on the part of the Adani group as accused by US-based short-seller, Hindenburg. The bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwala also said that the report submitted by the six-member panel headed by former Supreme Court judge AM Sapre will be studied over the next two days. The final order will be given on Monday, May 15.  

SEBI in its response to the Supreme Court has declared that it has been studying the Adani group's transactions since 2016. During the course of the hearing, Justice Chandrachud said, "We must act responsibly because these matters affect the stability of the market. The report of the committee headed by Justice Sapre has been received in the registry and we can see the report over the weekend.. there is some paucity of time. let us list this on Monday. we will pronounce orders on your application seeking time on Monday," the bench said.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on a time-extension of six months for the probe it was asked to conduct into the Adani-Hindenburg matter on March 2. The apex court had constituted a six member panel monitored by former Supreme Court judge AM Sapre. The other members of the expert committee are former SBI chairman OP Bhatt, Justice JP Devadhar (retired), veteran banker KV Kamath, Infosys co-founder Nadan Nilekani and advocate Somasekhar Sundaresan, an expert on Securities law. The Supreme Court had given two months to the expert panel to submit their findings. The panel submitted their findings in a sealed envelope on May 8. SEBI has asked for more time to deepen its probe.

New York based short-seller, Hindenburg Research in January, made a series of tweets and released a report with a series of allegations against the Adani group. Some allegations in the report were, the use of offshore entities to move billions of dollars into the listed Adani Group entities without the required disclosure of related party transactions; violations of SEBI rules regarding public float, listing rules and disclosures, 85% over-valuation of the group's listed companies among other allegations. The Adani group had issued a series of statements including a 413-page rebuttal dismissing the report.