The Bombay High Court on Tuesday extended its interim stay on a special court’s directive to register an FIR against former SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and five other officials over alleged stock market fraud and regulatory violations.

Justice Shivkumar Dige granted time to Buch and others to review an affidavit filed by the complainant, mediaperson Sapan Shrivastava. “The interim relief granted earlier shall continue until further orders,” said Justice Dige and scheduled the next hearing for May 7.

Last month, the HC had granted an interim stay on the special court’s order, stating that it was passed mechanically and no specific role was attributed to the accused.

Fraud allegations

The special Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) court, in its March 1 order, had directed the registration of an FIR, citing prima facie evidence of regulatory lapses and collusion in the fraudulent listing of a company on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in 1994.

The case implicates Buch, three current whole-time SEBI directors—Ashwani Bhatia, Ananth Narayan G, and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney—along with BSE Managing Director and CEO Sundararaman Ramamurthy and former Chairman Pramod Agarwal.

The accused officials challenged the order, calling it “patently illegal” and “without jurisdiction”. They argued that they were not holding any regulatory positions at the time of the alleged fraud. Both SEBI and BSE have dismissed the complaint as “frivolous and vexatious”.

The ACB court had ruled that an impartial probe was necessary and had set a 30-day deadline for a status report.

Published on April 1, 2025