Did Cairn India and Vedanta, controlled by Anil Agarwal, violate market norms with regard to payment of dividend worth around Rs. 440 crore? The Securities and Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has asked SEBI to probe.
I-T Department’s move
In 2017, Cairn Holdings UK had complained to SEBI against Cairn India for withholding dividend payments to it. The UK company had been allowed to claim dividends in the course of an international arbitration under the UK-India bilateral treaty.
Vedanta had declared Rs. 21.2 a share dividend for shareholders and a 7.5 per cent payment on preference shares. For Cairn, the total receivable came to about Rs. 440 crore. But Vedanta transferred that money to a separate account, which was later taken over by the income tax department.
