New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a fresh plea on February 17 seeking investigation under the supervision of a sitting apex court judge against the Adani group in light of the allegations made by US short seller Hindenburg Research, reported news agency PTI.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha took note of the submissions of a lawyer representing Congress leader Jaya Thakur, that the plea needed urgent hearing.
Initially the bench agreed to list the public interest litigation for hearing on February 24 but later decided to hear it on Friday after the lawyer pointed out that two other PILs are listed on February 17.
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In her plea, Thakur also sought a direction for investigating the role of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and the State Bank of India (SBI) in investing huge amounts of public money in Adani Enterprises.
On Monday, the Centre had agreed to the apex court's proposal to set up a panel of experts to look into strengthening the regulatory mechanisms for the stock market following the recent Adani group shares crash triggered by Hindenburg Research's fraud allegations.
The top court seized two petitions alleging exploitation of innocent investors and "artificial crashing" of the Adani Group's stock value.
American short seller and investment research firm Hindenburg Research had on January 24 published a report on Adani Group alleging the group of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades.”
The report, titled 'Adani Group: How The World’s 3rd Richest Man Is Pulling The Largest Con In Corporate History', questioned the accounting and corporate governance practices of Adani Group, and also raised the issue of heavy debt.