Last year SEBI was reprimanded by the Supreme Court of India for failure to comply with its order and provide documents available with it to Reliance Industries Limited Industries, which was noticee in one of the proceedings. Despite the same even now SEBI has been hesitant to share evidences and documents with the noticees despite a reprimand from the Supreme Court of India.
In this regard, Mr. Pavan Kumar authored an article in LiveMint which discusses the SEBI’s approach of selective disclosure of documents. The article highlights that while SEBI has a policy of sharing documents which it relies on while issuing a notice to a noticee, it has been seen that SEBI often shares only those documents which it deems relevant. The selective sharing of documents by SEBI is a gross violation of principle of natural justice and it hampers fair trail, transparency and accountability.
The article features views of Mr. Sumit Agrawal, Managing Partner, Regstreet Law Advisors and former SEBI officer who notes that, “Selective document disclosure violates the accused’s rights and fairness principles. SEBI creates a hyper-technical distinction to deny providing all documentation collected during investigation or are in its possession. Further, SEBI provides only those documents which it considers material for the accused to file a a reply. The Supreme Court, in the Reliance matter, held that the regulator, to be fair and trans- parent, must provide all documentation even though it may be against SEBI.”
Readers are welcome to send their views to Regstreet Law Advisors at info@regstreetlaw.com.