Vikas Mehta And Others vs Securities and Exchange Board of India

Tarun Agarwala, Presiding Officer

Against an order imposing a penalty, the appellant preferred an Appeal no. 173 of 2009 before this Tribunal which was dismissed as withdrawn by

an order dated January 4, 2010 on recording a statement of the counsel for the respondent, namely, that the monetary penalty imposed by the

Adjudicating Officer (‘AO’ for short) of the Securities and Exchange of India (‘SEBI’ for short) will not be recovered from the applicant

/ appellant in his personal capacity.

It transpires that SEBI has filed a criminal case against the Company and its directors under Section 27 of the SEBI Act, 1992 before the Mumbai

City Civil and Sessions Court where the matter is pending. The applicant / appellant requested SEBI to withdraw these proceedings in view of the

order of this Tribunal dated January 4, 2010. Since no action was taken on the appellant’s letter, the present application was filed praying that

SEBI should be directed to withdraw the criminal case filed against the applicant / appellant.

Having heard the learned counsel for the applicant we find that the present application is patently erroneous and misconceived. The order of this

Tribunal was very clear and explicit, namely, that the monetary penalty will not be recovered from the appellant in his personal capacity. It does mean

that any offence which has been committed by the Company then every person who was responsible to the Company for the conduct of the business

of the Company could not be proceeded against under Section 27 of the SEBI Act. In our view the present application is totally erroneous and such

submissions made before this Tribunal can be dealt with by the Court where the criminal case has been filed. The application is misconceived and is

rejected summarily.

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.