Devang Dadia And Others vs Recovery Officer And Others

Tarun Agarwala, Presiding Officer

Two appeals have been filed being Appeal No. 400 of 2021 and 401 of 2021 against different recovery certificate and attachment order. For

facility, the facts stated in Appeal No. 400 of 2021 is being taken into consideration. There is a delay in the filing of the appeal. For the reasons stated

in the applications the delay is condoned. The applications are allowed.

A penalty order was passed by the Adjudicating Officer (‘AO’ for short) of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (‘SEBI’ for

short) dated January 21, 2010 imposing a penalty of Rs. 8 lakh. Appeal against the order was dismissed by this Tribunal on June 29, 2017. The

appellant refused to pay the penalty amount as a result criminal proceeding was initiated by the appropriate court and, by an order dated December 5,

2017, a fine of Rs. 12 lakh was imposed. This fine was also not paid as a result of which the appellant underwent an imprisonment of six months.

Thereafter, the recovery certificate was issued on October 31, 2019 and now an attachment order has been issued on January 9, 2021. The

appellant has filed the present appeal against this attachment order.

Similar is the position in Appeal No. 401 of 2021 which flows from the order of the AO dated September 24, 2009 wherein a penalty of Rs. 1 lakh

was imposed.

The contention of Shri J.J. Bhatt, the learned counsel is, that since the appellant underwent an imprisonment of six months no recovery would now

be made against him. This submission is patently erroneous. The imprisonment was done because the appellant refused to comply with the criminal

proceeding which is totally different and distinct from the liability which is fastened upon the appellant pursuant to the order of the AO. Since the

amount has not been paid in spite of the order which was passed in the year 2010 the attachment order issued by the Recovery Officer does not

suffer from any error of law. The appeals fail and are dismissed summarily at the admission stage itself with no order as to costs.

The present matter was heard through video conference due to Covid-19 pandemic. At this stage it is not possible to sign a copy of this order nor a

certified copy of this order could be issued by the registry. In these circumstances, this order will be digitally signed by the Private Secretary on behalf

of the bench and all concerned parties are directed to act on the digitally signed copy of this order. Parties will act on production of a digitally signed

copy sent by fax and/or email.