Supreme Court upholds UK Sinha's appointment as SEBI chief

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition which had challenged a 2011 decision of the UPA government to deny former Sebi chief CB Bhave an extension and appoint UK Sinha in his place.

In the ruling the judges praised then finance minister Mukherjee for “transparency” in functioning while rejecting a charge that his advisor Omita Paul influenced the decision.

Paul was his advisor in the finance ministry. It was “virtually impossible to accept the submission” that Paul was “able to influence the decision-making process which involves the active participation of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), a high-powered search-cum-selection committee, with the final approval of the finance minister and the prime minister”, the court said.

The petition, filed by Arun Kumar Agrawal, had alleged that Paul, as advisor to the former finance minister, was instrumental in having Sinha appointed as the chief of the country’s market regulator by suppressing facts in violation of eligibility norms.

Agarwal’s lawyer Prashant Bhushan argued that the selection team was first tampered with to facilitate Sinha’s selection at the instance of some corporate lobbies who were opposed to an extension for Bhave as he had ordered probes against them. He had specifically alluded to Sahara and Reliance in this context.

A bench, comprising Justices SS Nijjar and Pinak Chandra Bose, on Friday rejected these allegations as having “no merits”. The bench also rejected allegations of wrong-doing by Sinha such as allegedly making false statements about his salary before the search and selection committee.

Sinha had not revealed the fact that he was getting more as head of UTI mutual fund than what he would get as Sebi chief, Bhushan alleged. “We fail to see what role Sinha had to play in the whole procedure except for accepting the invitation of the searchcum-selection committee for interaction. Even if the pay scale has not been mentioned, it cannot cast a shadow on the integrity of proceedings held by the search-cum-selection committee,” the court said.