The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) on Wednesday reserved its order in an appeal filed by Zee promoter Punit Goenka against an order by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) barring him from holding directorships in Zee group companies as well as the merged entity with Sony.
SAT also said that written submissions, if any, were to be done within a week. The appellate tribunal had been hearing the matter for over five sessions from August 30 after Goenka filed an appeal against the Sebi order on August 25.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Sebi’s lawyer Darius Khambata submitted that it would complete investigations into five of the transactions where fund diversion was observed by November 30. This was after considering the appellate tribunal’s apprehensions on the eight-month-long investigation period proposed by Sebi in its confirmatory order on August 14.
Goenka’s lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi, meanwhile, argued that Sebi’s approach was punitive. And prosecuting an individual with a ban wasn’t fair at all. Goenka also had no control over other Essel group companies and decisions taken by them could not result in an order penalising him.
Sebi‘s confirmatory order in August had revising its earlier directions given to Goenka and his father Subhash Chandra from holding company directorships. It had asked its investigating officials to complete the inquiry within eight months, saying that transactions were layered and circuitous.
The developments coincide with the proposed merger of Zee and Sony, which was approved by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) last month. While some lenders have appealed against the NCLT approval in the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), some media experts say that these legal challenges would result in a marginal delay in the merger.