Bombay HC says Session Judge order is ‘mechanical’; stays registration of FIR against Buch, BSE MD others | Mumbai News – The Times of India

MUMBAI: In a reprieve to former Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch, Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) MD Sundararaman Ramamurthy, and four others, Bombay High Court on Tuesday stayed what it termed was a “mechanical’’ order of the Mumbai special trial court that on Saturday directed Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to register an FIR against them in an alleged wrongful 1994 listing of a company, “oversight failure” and “criminal misconduct’’.
A single Judge bench of Justice S G Dige of the HC stayed the March 1 order of special Judge SE Bangar.
Justice Dige in his order said, “after going through the impugned order passed by learned Special Court, it prima facie appears that learned Judge has passed the order mechanically, without going into details and without attributing any specific role to the applicant hence impugned order is stayed till the further orders’’.
The HC adjourned the matter to April 1 to enable the complainant to file his reply to the challenges raised by all six officials.

Senior counsel Amit Desai for the two BSE top brass Ramamurthy and Pramod Agarwal said the complaint makes “bald and scandalous” allegations of alleged “bribe’’ against the nation’s “preeminent regulators of capital market’’ with “absolutely no particulars’’. Desai said, “today’s times rely on inflow of investments…the Sessions court order was passed without application of mind, without considering the serious aspect of the ramifications such an order on a specious and vexatious complaint can have…’’
Desai cited Supreme Court order to point out that a trial court when dealing with a private complaint must apply his mind and cannot mechanically pass order. Desai said, “it is sad and unfortunate that the Judge did not realise the seriousness of the impact of his order…and also unfortunate that a special court established for corruption cases, is not aware of the Maharashtra amendment to the Prevention of Corruption Act (PC Act) that requires prior sanction before ordering a FIR against public servants for discharge of duty.’’
He added, “if order is not stayed, the ramifications would be serious.’’ The ‘prior sanction’ was introduced in law as a salutary provision just to prevent frivolous, vexatious proceedings, added Desai.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta echoed Desai’s concern on impact of the trial court order and also submitted that the two-para complaint, filed against a 30-year-old listing was “vague and vexatious’’.
Mehta said the complainant Sapan Shrivastava is a habitual litigant on who the HC had earlier in 2019 imposed a Rs 5 lakh cost for “gross abuse of process of court’’ by filing a “frivolous” petition. Mehta representing three whole time directors of Sebi also said the HC had in 2019 directed to “file a FIR for extortion against the Petitioner (Shrivastava).
The recently retired Buch, 60, Ramamurthy and four others had on Monday approached Bombay HC l for quashing the special court order against them. Their plea was that the order was “unjust” and “harsh”, when none were even officials in 1994.
Criminal law requires specific allegations, not vague as the complainant made, yet the special ACB court did not consider lack of specifics and held to the contrary, the SG and Desai, as well as senior counsel Sudeep Pasbola for Buch, argued.
Pasbola added that the court order seemed to have more penal sections than were even mentioned in the original complaint.
Shrivastava appearing as party-in-person, sought to justify the sessions court order and his complaint. After submitting that many investors are affected when there is lack of oversight by regulators, he said he wanted time to file his reply to challenges filed by the six public servants.
Desai, with advocates Mihir Gheewala and Gopal Shenoy, took the HC through dates and the complainants’ RTI plea to argue that the complaint misrepresented before the sessions court and submitted, “Meticulous application of mind has to be there,’’ by a Judge when handling private complaints.
“See how malafide the proceeding is and how scandalous,’’ Desai argued, submitting that a ‘charade’ was created of filing a police complaint in 2024 before moving court.