Sucheta Dalal :SAT takes exception to Shankar Sharma’s conduct
Sucheta Dalal

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SAT takes exception to Shankar Sharma’s conduct  

March 24, 2010

The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has taken exception to First Global Stock Broking Ltd's (FGSB) Shankar Sharma’s conduct and for keeping it in the dark about his petition and dismissal of the same by the Supreme Court (SC).

 

While dismissing the review petition of Mr Sharma, SAT, in its order said: "We cannot but deprecate the conduct of the applicant (Shankar Sharma) on whose prayer we had stayed the operation of our order on 28.10.2009 in not informing us about the dismissal of his appeal in the Supreme Court when he filed his rejoinder on 3.2.2010 before the Tribunal. It is obvious that his intention was to keep us in the dark and enjoy the benefit of the stay as long as he could and he succeeded till the final hearing of the review petition. As already observed, the fact of the dismissal of the appeal was brought to our notice only by the Board when it filed Misc. Application No.15 of 2010 for the dismissal of the review petition."

 

Earlier in February 2009, market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) barred Shankar Sharma from trading in the securities market for one year for indulging in synchronised trades, buying and selling at the same time, to rig share prices of 10 companies in 2001.

 

Following the SEBI order, Mr Sharma appealed to the SAT, which stayed the debarment order in March. He had also appealed to the Supreme Court against the SEBI order in December 2009, which was later dismissed by the apex court in February this year.

 

The SAT said, after its order on 28 October 2009, the counsel for Mr Sharma made an oral prayer that its order be kept in abeyance as the appellant wanted to file a statutory appeal in the Supreme Court. The SAT then extended its stay order from time to time till 30 November 2009.

 

Meanwhile, Mr Sharma, on 9 December 2009, filed an appeal in the Supreme Court under Section 15 (Z) of the Act and the same was dismissed by the SC on 1 February 2010. However the hearing of Mr Sharma's petition in the SAT was going on. He filed a rejoinder on 3 March 2010 to the SAT by which time his appeal was dismissed by the SC. However, Mr Sharma did not inform the same to the SAT.

 

The SAT said: “In fact, when the review petition was partly heard on 11.12.2009, he did not inform us that he had filed an appeal in the Supreme Court and instead we were informed that the applicant had been advised to first get the errors of fact rectified which, according to him, had crept into our order of 28.10.2009 before the Supreme Court could consider the appeal. The review petition was being adjourned from time to time and the stay already granted was being extended. It was on 11.2.2010 that the Board filed Misc. Application No.15 of 2010 in the review petition bringing to our notice that Civil Appeal No. 37 of 2010 filed by the applicant against our order had been dismissed on 1.2.2010."

 

Senior advocates Janak Dwarkadas with Somasekhar Sundaresan, Ankit Lohia, Ravichandra S Hegde and Vishal Khanavkar represented Mr Sharma while Additional Solicitor General Darius Khambata with Daya and Chloris John represented SEBI. — Yogesh Sapkale

 


-- Sucheta Dalal