The Securities Appellate Tribunal has rejected SEBI’s plea to remove adverse remarks made against it in a June 30 order with regard to a matter involving Tata Finance (TFL). Justice JP Devadhar, who retired as the presiding officer of SAT on July 12 said “we (tribunal) see no reason to delete the observation made in our order that in the present case SEBI has not acted impartially.”

In its June 30 order SAT had observed that “SEBI indulged in shielding the main culprits at the cost of the applicants, which was detrimental to the interest of securities market.”

SAT had observed that even after holding TFL guilty of making false declarations in its letter of offer, SEBI had failed to take action against TFL, which was not only unusual but also bound to send wrong signals to the securities market. SEBI asked SAT to review such remarks. “We will be failing in our duty if these serious anomalies are not brought to the notice of SEBI with a view to ensure that such lapses do not occur again in the future,” SAT said in its July 9 order.

SEBI had imposed a three-year ban on Pat Financial Consultants, Superior Financial Consultancy Services and AL Shilotri — former CEO of TFL’s subsidiary Niskalp Investment and Trading in June 2016. SEBI had also passed directions against late DS Phandse, former director of TFL. But SEBI failed to take any action against TFL even after it found the company guilty.

SEBI in April 2001 alleged that TFL had made false disclosures in the ‘letter of offer’ for the rights issue of 9 per cent cumulative convertible preference shares. According to the complaint, TFL did not disclose in its document the losses incurred by its arm Niskalp Investment.

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