Supreme Court To Hear Pleas Seeking Inquiry Into Hindenburg Report Tomorrow
The Supreme Court has agreed to list the pleas seeking an investigation into the Hindenburg Report on the Adani group of companies on Friday, February 10.
A Bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice PS Narasimha and Justice JB Pardiwala said “Tag and List with the main matter”, when urgent mentioning for listing was made before the Court by Advocate Vishal Tiwari, who has filed the Public Interest Litigation on the issue.
“A similar petition is coming tomorrow. This pertains to the Hindenburg report which has tarnished the image of the country”, said Tiwari, the petitioner-in-person before the Supreme Court referring to the earlier plea filed by Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma.
The plea filed by Sharma is shown to be tentatively listed before Court on February 10, as per the computer-generated date available on the official website of the Supreme Court. In his plea, Sharma has alleged that “ short sellers, i.e. Anderson resident of USA and his Indian entities hatched a criminal conspiracy did short sale in hundreds of billion dollars prior and thereafter on 25th January 2023 they released a concocted news as research report qua to the Adani Group of the companies, got crash share market and squared up their short sell position at the lowest rate. They secured billions of profits by butchering citizen of India”.
The plea seeks inquiry to prosecute by registering F.I.R. against Anderson and his associates, in the interest of justice.
In his PIL, petitioner-Vishal Tiwari has also sought directions to set up a Committee under the Chairmanship of a retired Supreme Court Judge to investigate and form a special committee for sanction of high-power loans.
The plea states that after the publication of the Hindenburg Report, various investors have lost massive amounts who invested their savings in such shares.
The petitioner has claimed that the market value of all 10 Adani stocks has halved with investors sitting with a colossal loss of Rs. 10 lakh Crore and in the last seven trading sessions since the release of the report by the American short-seller, the market capitalisation of all 10 Adani Group stocks is down by over 51% to Rs. 9.31 lakh Crore.
It further states that Seven listed companies of the Adani conglomerate have lost a combined $48 billion in market capitalisation since Wednesday and saw falls in its U.S. bonds after Hindenburg Research flagged concerns in a report about debt levels and the use of tax havens.
The plea says that since the fall in shares after the Hindenburg Report, when RBI detailed about exposure from SBI, it had mentioned that the bank’s total exposure to Adani Group is 0.9 percent of the overall loan book which is around Rs 27,000 Crore.
The petitioner has questioned how such public money is floating in the money market without any refined process of loan being disbursed.
It has been stated that the publication of the report has also put public money in danger and that there is an apprehension a huge amount of public money may lapse and that questions have arisen about the investment by the Life Insurance Corporation and State Bank of India in Adani Group.
Thus the petitioner has sought directions for forming a Committee under the monitoring of the retired Supreme Court Judge to enquire and investigate into the Hindenburg Research Report.
The petitioner has also prayed to set up a special committee for overseeing sanction policy for high-power loans of more than 500 crores that are given to big corporates.
Cause Title- Vishal Tiwari v. Union of India & Ors.