SAT Disposes Of Appeals By Hindenburg-Named Mauritius Funds After SEBI Agrees To Share Opinion

The Securities Appellate Tribunal at Mumbai has recently disposed of five appeals filed by Mauritius-based investment funds after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) agreed to furnish them with a complete copy of the opinion/ file noting prepared by its Adjudicating Officer.

A coram of Presiding Officer Justice P. S Dinesh Kumar, Technical Members Meera Swarup and Dr. Dheeraj Bhatnagar passed the order.

The appeals were filed by LTS Investment Fund Limited, Asia Investment Corporation (Mauritius) Limited, APMS Investment Fund Limited, Cresta Fund Limited and Albula Investment Fund Limited challenging the Adjudicating Officer's order dated May 21, 2026.

Four of the five appellants, LTS Investment Fund, APMS Investment Fund, Cresta Fund and Albula Investment Fund, were among the Mauritius-based funds named in Hindenburg Research's January 2023 report on the Adani Group.

The appellants sought, among other reliefs, setting aside of the impugned order and a direction to SEBI to furnish the opinion under Rule 4(3) of the SEBI (Procedure for Holding of Inquiry and Imposing Penalties by Adjudicating Officer) Rules, 1995 along with reasons, before proceeding with a personal hearing.

Rule 4(3) requires the Adjudicating Officer, after considering the response to the show cause notice, to form an opinion on whether an inquiry should be held.

Their grievance was that the opinion formed by the Adjudicating Officer under Rule 4(3) had not been supplied in its entirety and that only a paraphrased version had been made available to them.

SEBI, meanwhile, raised a preliminary objection regarding the maintainability of the appeals. It submitted that since a paraphrased version of the opinion had already been provided, the appellants' grievance was not justified.

During the hearing, the Tribunal questioned SEBI about its position on furnishing the complete Rule 4(3) opinion, including the relevant file noting.

Following this, SEBI submitted that it was prepared to provide the appellants with a true copy of the entire opinion/ file noting made by the Adjudicating Officer under Rule 4(3). SEBI submitted that this would satisfy the appellants and that nothing further would survive in the appeals.

The appellants' counsel expressed satisfaction with SEBI's submission.

Considering this, the Tribunal observed:

“In view of the above, nothing further survives in these appeals. The Appeals stands disposed of by placing the submission of Mr. Mustafa Doctor, learned senior advocate for the respondent and the learned advocates for the respective appellants on record.”

Accordingly, the Tribunal disposed of the appeals.

For Appellants: Senior Advocate Zal Andhyarujina, Advocates P.R Ramesh, Pratysh Gupta, Joby Mathew, Kush Padamsi and Vinay Chauhan

For Respondent: Advocates Sumit Rai, Ravishekhar Pandey, Prapti Kedia and Ankit Ujjwal