SC seeks reply from Goldman Sachs on Sebi plea

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today issued notice to international investment banker Goldman Sachs on a petition by SEBI questioning whether the sectoral tribunal SAT, a quasi-judicial body, has the powers to impose penalty on the market regulator.

A bench headed by Justice S H Kapadia, while staying the the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) judgement that imposed cost of Rs 1 lakh on SEBI, asked Goldman Sachs to explain why the same should not be set aside.

Besides, it also asked the banker to explain why remarks against the adjudicating officer of SEBI should not be expunged.

SEBI's then adjudicating officer Amit Pradhan had imposed a penalty of Rs 1 crore on Goldman Sachs Investment (Mauritius) for furnishing false declarations, citing violation under SEBI's (Foreign Institutional Investors) Regulations, 1995.

Solicitor General G E Vahanvati and P Venugopal, appearing for SEBI, said, "We are not challenging the judgement as a whole but only two questions of law -- one is the remarks like 'over bearing, sheer arrogance, without applying mind, etc' used in the ruling against the officer and the second is the impostion of penalty".

"Such remarks are generally demoralising. Besides, there are violations on Goldman's part and the company had given wrong declarations before the officer," he added.

He said that there were no explicit or implicit provisions authorising SAT to impose costs on it.