Supreme Court refuses to accept Forbes report on Adani-Hindenburg row

Advocate Varun Thakur, appearing for Congress leader Dr Jaya Thakur, who seeks an independent probe into the whole issue, requested the court to take the Forbes report on record but the court refused.

New Delhi:The Supreme Court bench led by the Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, on Monday refused to take on record the Forbes report on the Adani-Hindenburg row. Advocate Varun Thakur, appearing for Congress leader Dr Jaya Thakur, who seeks an independent probe into the whole issue, requested the court to take the Forbes report on record but the court refused.

"No no, we will not take it on record," said CJI Chandrachud. The matter was mentioned before the bench also comprising Justice PS Narasimha and Justice JB Pardiwala. The top court on February 17 had reserved its order on a batch of PILs seeking an independent probe into the Adani-Hindenburg row and had said that it would constitute a committee with the people it deems fit to review the regulatory framework.

When the matter was first heard in the court, the court had expressed its concerns regarding thousands of crores of loss suffered by the Indian investors. It had asked the centre and SEBI for a response regarding the regulatory framework and had suggested setting up a committee to review the existing regulatory framework so that in the future such incidents could be prevented.

Later on, the central government said that it has no issue in constituting a committee but the remit should be defined. It had also given names in a sealed cover to the court who could be included in the committee. However, the court had refused to accept the names in a sealed cover saying that it wants to ensure transparency for the other side as well.

It also said that in case it accepts the names suggested by the government, there can be an opinion that it's a committee constituted by the government. The Court had refused to accept even the petitioner's suggestions on names as it didn't want to raise any question over the integrity or credibility of any judge by choosing names from a list that would be made public. The order regarding constituting the committee is likely to be out soon.