An expert panel constituted by the Supreme Court (SC) to probe Adani Group said it was not possible to conclude if there has been regulatory failure regarding price manipulations, according to a court filing seen by Reuters.
The market regulator, SEBI, has drawn a blank in its probe regarding the groups entities' ownership, the court committee said in the report.
According to the Reuters' report, the expert panel said that there was evidence of a build-up in short positions on Adani Group stocks ahead of a report by the US-based short seller Hindenburg Group. It was not possible to conclude whether there has been regulatory failure regarding price manipulations, the committee said in the report.
The report said that the committee could not find any pattern of artificial trading among the same parties multiple times.
"In one of the patches where the price rose, the foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) under investigation were net sellers. One investing entity that had purchased across the patches had purchased far more of other securities. In a nutshell, there was no coherent pattern of abusive trading that has come to light," it said.
On the other hand, it said that Sebi has found that some entities that had taken short positions before the publication of the report have profited from "squaring odd their positions after the price crashed". "All the parties are still under investigation and thus the committee therefore does not express any opinion on merits," the report added.
Meanwhile, the apex court on Wednesday granted the SEBI three-month extension to complete its investogation into Hindenburg report against Adani Group. The SC told the SEBI to submit an updated status report on probe into allegations of stock price manipulation by Gautam Adani-led group by August 14.
A bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud directed the regulator to file an updated status report of the investigation. The bench, also comprising Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala, also ordered that the report of the Justice A M Sapre committee, which was submitted to it, be made available to the parties to enable them to assist the court in the matter.