New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday fixed a two-month deadline for the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to complete its probe into the allegations made in a report by American investment research firm Hindenburg.
The three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud also constituted an expert committee under the supervision of retired SC judge Justice A.M. Sapre to review the market regulatory mechanism in the light of the Adani-Hindenburg controversy. This committee has to submit its report in a sealed cover to the court in two months.
The committee members nominated by the court are former SBI chairman O.P. Bhatt, retired justice J.P. Devadhar, veteran banker K.V. Kamath, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, and Mumbai-based advocate Somasekhar Sundaresan.
ThePrint takes a look at the members nominated by the apex court.
Former Supreme Court judge Justice A.M. Sapre
Justice Sapre practised in the Madhya Pradesh High Court for over 20 years before being elevated as a judge in the same high court in October 1999. He also worked as a judge in the Rajasthan High Court, before taking charge as the first Chief Justice of Manipur High Court in March 2013. The same year in October, he was transferred as the Chief Justice of Gauhati High Court. He was elevated as a Supreme Court judge in August 2014, and retired five years later in August 2019.
During his tenure as a Supreme Court judge, he was a part of the nine-judge bench which recognised the fundamental right to privacy in the landmark Justice Puttaswamy case. In 2017, he was also appointed as the Chairman of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal — which was set up in 1990 to adjudicate inter-state river water disputes among Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Months after his retirement, the Supreme Court appointed him the chairman of its committee on road safety in January 2020.
Also Read: Supreme Court verdict on AIADMK leadership: Decoding the ruling that caps EPS-OPS tussle
Former SBI chairman O.P. Bhatt
A physics graduate, with a post graduate in English literature, O.P. Bhatt is former chairman of the State Bank of India (SBI). During his tenure at SBI, he implemented the then cutting-edge technologies, including core banking, trade finance, and data bank across the bank.
In the last decade, he has been an independent director on the corporate boards in several multinationals ranging from leadership development, international banking, to autos, steel, IT services, consumer goods and renewable energy.
He was appointed as an independent director on the Board of Hindustan Unilever Limited in December 2011. As per the HUL website, he is a member of the Audit Committee, Environmental, Social and Governance Committee and Nomination & Remuneration Committee of the company, and is the chairperson of the Stakeholders Relationship Committee and Corporate Social Responsibility Committee of the company.
He was nominated the ‘Banker of the Year’ by Business Standard and CNN–IBN Indian of the Year for Business in 2007, and was also the chairman of the Indian Banks’ Association. He is currently a member of the India Advisory Council of the India Advisory Board of Schulich School of business Toronto, and was also reappointed as a non-executive independent director by Tata Motors last year.
Retired Justice J.P. Devadhar
Justice J.P. Devadhar began his law practice at the Bombay High Court in 1977, in the chambers of retired Bombay High Court judge, Justice D.R. Dhanuka. He was elevated as a high court judge in October 2001, and retired in April 2013. As a high court judge, he was a part of a bench, along with Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, hearing the Vodafone tax case. The bench had upheld the I-T department’s demand of Rs 12,000 crore tax on the company’s over USD 11 billion deal with Hong Kong-based Hutchison in 2007.
After his retirement, from 2013 to 2018, he served as the presiding officer of the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT), which is a quasi-judicial body that hears appeals filed by companies and individuals aggrieved by the SEBI’s orders.
K.V. Kamath
K.V. Kamath is currently the chairman of the development finance institution, National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID), which was set up to help fund long-term infrastructure projects in the country.
The veteran banker is a 1971 IIM-Ahmedabad graduate who began his career with Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI). He then moved to Asian Development Bank in 1988, before returning to ICICI in 1996. He retired as the MD and CEO of ICICI Bank Ltd. in 2009 and served as the non-executive chairman of the bank till 2015. He was also appointed non-executive chairman of Infosys Ltd. between 2011 and 2015.
He also held the post of the first president of the New Development Bank, set up by the BRICS countries from 2015 to 2020. In November last year, Kamath was appointed as non-executive chairman of Reliance Strategic Investments, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd. Reliance Strategic Investments is to be renamed as Jio Financial Services and listed after the financial services business of the Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate is demerged.
Nandan Nilekani
Nandan Nilekani is the co-founder and chairman of tech-giant Infosys. He was also the founding chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in the rank of a Cabinet Minister from 2009 to 2014.
An IIT-Bombay graduate, Nilekani soon rose to be identified as “Asia’s Businessman of the year 2003” by Fortune Magazine. He has been conferred with several awards, including the Padma Bhushan in 2006. He was also named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2006 and 2009 by Time Magazine.
Somasekhar Sundaresan
Somasekhar Sundaresan is a 1996-batch law graduate from Government Law College, Mumbai. He worked as a journalist for a few years, before beginning his practice. He also headed the securities law and financial sector regulatory practice at JSA law firm, before starting his own practice.
He now practices in areas related to financial sector regulation, competition law, company law, and exchange controls. He has been a part of several high-level committees responsible for recommending financial legislation, including being a member of the Takeover Regulations Advisory Committee, constituted by the SEBI. He is currently on the advisory committee on the Corporate Insolvency and Liquidation, till June 2023.
Sundaresan was recommended for elevation as a Bombay High Court judge in February 2022. However, the Department of Justice returned his file in November last year. In January, the Supreme Court Collegium then reiterated its recommendation, asserting, “All citizens have the right to free speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. Expression of views by a candidate does not disentitle him to hold a constitutional office so long as the person proposed for judgeship is a person of competence, merit and integrity.”
As per the resolution, this was after the Department of Justice objected to his elevation calling him a “highly biased opinionated person”, and saying that he has been “selectively critical on the social media on the important policies, initiatives and directions of the Government”.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
Disclosure: Nandan Nilekani, the former chairman of UIDAI and co-founder of Infosys, is among the distinguished founder-investors of ThePrint. Please click here for details on investors.
Also Read: SC rapped both Punjab govt & governor in row over summoning assembly. Here’s what law says