{"id":251693,"date":"2025-03-04T19:29:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T19:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/04\/bombay-hc-says-session-judge-order-is-mechanical-stays-registration-of-fir-against-buch-bse-md-others-mumbai-news-the-times-of-india\/"},"modified":"2025-03-04T19:29:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T19:29:24","slug":"bombay-hc-says-session-judge-order-is-mechanical-stays-registration-of-fir-against-buch-bse-md-others-mumbai-news-the-times-of-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/04\/bombay-hc-says-session-judge-order-is-mechanical-stays-registration-of-fir-against-buch-bse-md-others-mumbai-news-the-times-of-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Bombay HC says Session Judge order is ‘mechanical’; stays registration of FIR against Buch, BSE MD others | Mumbai News – The Times of India"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MUMBAI: In a reprieve to former Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch<\/a>, Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) MD Sundararaman Ramamurthy, and four others, Bombay High Court on Tuesday stayed what it termed was a \u201cmechanical\u2019\u2019 order of the Mumbai special trial court that on Saturday directed Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to register an FIR against them in an alleged wrongful 1994 listing of a company, \u201coversight failure\u201d and \u201ccriminal misconduct\u2019\u2019.
A single Judge bench of Justice S G Dige of the HC stayed the March 1 order of special Judge SE Bangar.
Justice Dige in his order said, \u201cafter going through the impugned order passed by learned Special Court, it prima facie appears that learned Judge has passed the order mechanically, without going into details and without attributing any specific role to the applicant hence impugned order is stayed till the further orders\u2019\u2019.
The HC adjourned the matter to April 1 to enable the complainant to file his reply to the challenges raised by all six officials.<\/p>\n

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Senior counsel Amit Desai for the two BSE top brass Ramamurthy and Pramod Agarwal said the complaint makes \u201cbald and scandalous\u201d allegations of alleged \u201cbribe\u2019\u2019 against the nation\u2019s \u201cpreeminent regulators of capital market\u2019\u2019 with \u201cabsolutely no particulars\u2019\u2019. Desai said, \u201ctoday\u2019s times rely on inflow of investments\u2026the Sessions court order was passed without application of mind, without considering the serious aspect of the ramifications such an order on a specious and vexatious complaint can have\u2026\u2019\u2019
Desai cited Supreme Court order to point out that a trial court when dealing with a private complaint must apply his mind and cannot mechanically pass order. Desai said, \u201cit is sad and unfortunate that the Judge did not realise the seriousness of the impact of his order\u2026and also unfortunate that a special court established for corruption cases, is not aware of the Maharashtra amendment to the Prevention of Corruption Act (PC Act) that requires prior sanction before ordering a FIR against public servants for discharge of duty.\u2019\u2019
He added, \u201cif order is not stayed, the ramifications would be serious.\u2019\u2019 The \u2018prior sanction\u2019 was introduced in law as a salutary provision just to prevent frivolous, vexatious proceedings, added Desai.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta echoed Desai\u2019s concern on impact of the trial court order and also submitted that the two-para complaint, filed against a 30-year-old listing was \u201cvague and vexatious\u2019\u2019.
Mehta said the complainant Sapan Shrivastava is a habitual litigant on who the HC had earlier in 2019 imposed a Rs 5 lakh cost for \u201cgross abuse of process of court\u2019\u2019 by filing a \u201cfrivolous\u201d petition. Mehta representing three whole time directors of Sebi also said the HC had in 2019 directed to \u201cfile a FIR for extortion against the Petitioner (Shrivastava).
The recently retired Buch, 60, Ramamurthy and four others had on Monday approached Bombay HC l for quashing the special court order against them. Their plea was that the order was \u201cunjust\u201d and \u201charsh\u201d, when none were even officials in 1994.
Criminal law requires specific allegations, not vague as the complainant made, yet the special ACB court did not consider lack of specifics and held to the contrary, the SG and Desai, as well as senior counsel Sudeep Pasbola for Buch, argued.
Pasbola added that the court order seemed to have more penal sections than were even mentioned in the original complaint.
Shrivastava appearing as party-in-person, sought to justify the sessions court order and his complaint. After submitting that many investors are affected when there is lack of oversight by regulators, he said he wanted time to file his reply to challenges filed by the six public servants.
Desai, with advocates Mihir Gheewala and Gopal Shenoy, took the HC through dates and the complainants\u2019 RTI plea to argue that the complaint misrepresented before the sessions court and submitted, \u201cMeticulous application of mind has to be there,\u2019\u2019 by a Judge when handling private complaints.
\u201cSee how malafide the proceeding is and how scandalous,\u2019\u2019 Desai argued, submitting that a \u2018charade\u2019 was created of filing a police complaint in 2024 before moving court.<\/div>\n