SC To Hear Plea Seeking Inquiry Into Hindenburg Report Tomorrow

The Supreme Court agrees to list the plea seeking an investigation into the Hindenburg Report on the Adani group of companies on Friday, February 10.

A Bench comprising of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice PS Narasimha stated “Tag and List with the main matter”, when urgent mentioning for the listing was made before the Court by Adv. Vishal Tiwari, who filed the PIL on the issue.

Vishal Tiwari stated that “A similar petition is coming tomorrow. This pertains to the Hindenburg report which has tarnished the image of the country”. The petitioner-in-person before the Supreme Court referring to the earlier plea filed by Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma.

The plea filed by Manohar Lal Sharma is shown to be provincially listed before the Apex Court on February 10. Sharma alleged in his plea that “short sellers, i.e., Anderson resident of USA and his Indian entities hatched a criminal conspiracy did short sale in hundreds of billion dollars prior and thereafter on 25th January 2023 they released a concocted news as research report qua to the Adani Group of the companies, got crash share market and squared up their short sell position at the lowest rate. They secured billions of profits by butchering citizen of India”.

The plea seeks the inquiry to prosecute by registering F.I.R. against Anderson and his associates, in the interest of justice.

Further in his PIL, petitioner-Vishal Tiwari also sought directions to set up a Committee under the Chairmanship of Supreme Court’s retired Judge to investigate and form a special committee for sanctioning high-power loans.

The plea states that after the publication of the Hindenburg Report, various investors lost massive amounts who invested their savings in those shares.

The petitioner claimed that the market value of all 10 Adani stocks has been divided with investors sitting with a colossal loss of ₹10 lakh Crore and in the last seven trading sessions since the release of the report by the American short-seller, the market capitalization of all 10 Adani Group stocks is down by over 51% to ₹9.31 lakh Crore.

It further states that 7 listed companies of the Adani conglomerate have lost a combined $48 billion in the market capitalization since Wednesday and saw falls in its U.S. bonds after Hindenburg Research flagged concerns in a report about debt levels and the use of tax havens.

The plea also states that since the fall in shares after the Hindenburg Report, when RBI detailed about exposure from SBI, it further mentioned that the bank’s total exposure to Adani Group is 0.9 % of the overall loan book which is around ₹27,000 Crore.

The petitioner has questioned how such public money is floating in the money market without any refined process of loan being disbursed.

It has been stated that the publication of the report has also put public money in danger and that there is an apprehension of a huge amount of public money that might lapse and that raises question about the investment by the Life Insurance Corporation & State Bank of India in Adani Group.

Therefore, the petitioner has sought directions for forming a committee under the monitoring of retired Supreme Court Judge to enquire & investigate into the Hindenburg Research Report.

The petitioner also prayed to set up a special committee for overseeing sanction policy for the high-power loans of more than ₹500 crores that are given to the big corporates.