Supreme Court, Adani: “We are not going to issue any injunction to the media ever,” said Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Friday while rejecting a plea seeking to gag the media from reporting on the Adani-Hindenburg Research crisis, reported Bar and Bench.
The bench, also comprising Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala, declined the plea filed of advocate ML Sharma.
On February 17, the top court had reserved its order on a batch of Public Interest Litigations (PILs) seeking an investigation into the Adani row.
Advocate Sharma, who is one of the petitioners, has sought directions to markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Union Home ministry to conduct an inquiry and register a First Information Report (FIR) against US-based short-seller firm Hindenburg Research’s founder Nathan Anderson and his associates in India.
Sharma also sought a gag order to halt media reports concerning listed companies unless such reports are first filed with and verified by SEBI.
CJI DY Chandrachud rejects plea
On Monday, the apex court refused to take on record the suggestion of one of the petitioners and a report published by Forbes in a batch of PILs. Earlier, the Supreme Court had also rejected suggestions on a proposed panel of experts for strengthening regulatory measures for the stock market in a sealed cover. The top court bench led by the CJI had said that the court will appoint a committee on its own.
“We will not accept the sealed cover suggestion by you because we want to maintain full transparency,” the bench had said.
The Adani group stocks have taken a beating on the bourses after the Hindenburg Research accused the business conglomerate of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades”.
The Adani group called the report a “malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations.”
