SAT reserves order on Subhash Chandra, Punit Goenka's petitions against Sebi order

Mumbai: The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) on Tuesday reserved its order on Essel Group Chairman Subhash Chandra and ZEEL Managing Director and CEO Punit Goenka's petitions challenging Sebi's interim order.

On June 12, the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi) in an ex-parte interim order restrained Chandra and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd's (ZEEL) Goenka from holding any directorship or key managerial positions in listed entities on account of alleged fund diversion.

In his arguments, Sebi's counsel Darius Khambata said the material gathered by the market regulator in the last four months indicated alleged siphoning off funds and showed further investigations were already underway.

Khambata also said the market regulator's actions are based on evidence.

In his arguments, senior advocate Janak Dwarkadas, representing Goenka, said that by removing two key people from the company, Sebi has infringed upon their fundamental rights to be employed.

He argued that while Sebi had issued the interim order against them, no direction had been issued against Yes Bank for appropriating the Rs 200 crore fixed deposit without ZEEL's approval.

Dwarkadas argued that investigations have not found any active irregularity about the role of the promoter or proof that the transactions are bogus.

After the conclusion of the arguments, SAT reserved its order.

On Monday, SAT declined to take on record an additional affidavit filed by Sebi that was related to the regulator's interim order against Chandra and Goenka after objections from the ZEEL promoters.

Meanwhile, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Monday said the next hearing on the matter of the merger of ZEEL and Sony Pictures Network India will be on July 6.