SC slams agencies over ‘reluctance’ to probe allegations against Indiabulls

Questioning the CBI and SEBI’s “reluctance” to probe allegations of “dubious transactions” against Indiabulls Housing Finance Limited (IHFL), now known as Sammaan Capital Limited, the Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the agency director to hold a meeting with SEBI, SFIO and ED to look into the matter.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan and N Kotiswar Singh, which also pulled up the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) for the compounding of multiple offences committed by IHFL, came down heavily on the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) over the “double standards” adopted by the market regulator in different cases over its jurisdiction to probe into illegalities.

The top court asked what was preventing authorities from filing an FIR and probing the allegations. It said that in the meeting to be held by the CBI director with officials of SEBI, SFIO and the ED, the closure of cases by the MCA shall not be an impediment and all allegations levelled by NGO ‘Citizens Whistle Blower Forum’, represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan, will be looked into.

The top court also asked the Delhi Commissioner of Police to furnish original records of the complaints made by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for probing into the allegations against IHFL and the basis on which the said complaint was refused to be probed by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW).

It directed that a senior official of the EOW of Delhi Police should be physically present with all original records on the next date of hearing on December 3.

During the hearing, the Chief Justice of India designate, Justice Kant, said, “We are surprised to see that the CBI has adopted a very cool kind of attitude and approach in this case. We have never seen such a friendly attitude, as we find in this case. We are sorry to observe this.”