Nothing rotten in the state of Adani
Supreme Court on Wednesday delivered its judgment on a cluster of petitions seeking an 'independent investigation' into allegations, levelled by US short-seller Hindenburg Research, related to stock manipulation and accounting fraud against the Adani group of companies. By refusing to transfer the ongoing Sebi probe to a special investigation team (SIT), the apex court has backed the domain authority of the markets regulator and reposed faith in it to see the matter to a conclusion. Any closure, as the court reminded, to the ongoing investigation would come after Sebi completes its investigations, for which it has now got an extended deadline by three months.
The bench saw no reason to find the regulator being lax in its investigations. In fact, it added that there were no valid grounds to direct Sebi to revoke its amendments on foreign portfolio investments (FPIs) and Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements (LODRs) on account of this probe. In other words, the apex court has not spotted anything hanky-panky.
The market, a compass, if anything, of the wisdom of crowds, reacted to the verdict positively.
The group's market cap at the end of Wednesday was ₹15.1 trillion, gaining ₹63,795 crore on a single day, up from ₹14.47 trillion the day before the verdict. A key question in the ongoing probe is about the beneficial ownership of the foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) that are stakeholders in the Adani companies. Sebi has been asking FPIs to disclose their beneficial ownership.
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