TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2015 (3) TMI 461
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....tion 6(d) of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices Related to Securities Market) Regulations, 1995 and Section 11(3) of the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) read with Section 24 and Section 27 of the said Act. This complaint was originally filed in the Court of ACMM who had passed the impugned order. A revision petition had been filed before the Sessions Judge. During the pendency of that revision petition by virtue of the judgment dated 11.1.2008 of the High Court delivered in W.P.(C) 18093/2006 M/s Churuwale Exports Pvt. Ltd. Vs. High Court of Delhi the original offence became triable by the Sessions Judge. Accordingly on 07.3.2009 the Additional Sessions Judge before whom the revision petition was pending transferred this matter to the High Court. 4 Arguments have been addressed separately by the petitioners. 5 On behalf of the petitioners no.3 and 4, at the outset, it has been pointed out that the cognizance order (impugned order) suffers from a legal bar, the bar of limitation is a hurdle. Submission being that (as per the un-amended Act) the offence for which the ....
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....ald statement by the complainant that the petitioner was in charge of the day to day affairs of the company and was responsible for its conduct or affairs would not by itself be sufficient to summon the petitioner. To support this proposition, reliance has been placed upon (2007) 3 SCC (Cri) 203 N.K.Wahi Vs. Shekhar Singh and Anr. , (2011) 1 SCC (Cri) 167 Central Bank of India Vs. Asian Global Limited and Ors. and 1989 SCC (Cri) 783 Sham Sunder and Ors. Vs. State of Haryana. 6 On behalf of the petitioner no.1 separate submissions have been made. It is pointed out that unless and until the mandatory hurdle of limitation is crossed by the complainant, the summoning order is bad. Learned counsel for the petitioner no.1 while adopting the arguments of the co-petitioners has placed reliance upon the same judgment i.e. Fortune Stones Ltd. (supra) as also another judgment Vinod Kumar Jain (supra) to support his submission that where cognizance is taken of an offence beyond the period of limitation the complaint is liable to be quashed. 7 Arguments have been refuted. The learned ASG has drawn attention of the Court to the provisions of the said Act including Section 26 and Section 30. Su....
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....s made thereunder, save on a complaint made by the Board. (2) No court inferior to that of a Court of Sessions shall try any offence punishable under this Act." 11 It clearly stipulates that no court shall take cognizance of any offence punishable under this Act except on a complaint made by the Board. 12 Under Section 30 of the Act, the Board by a notification may make regulations which are consistent with this Act. 13 Regulation 7 of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices Related to Securities Market) Regulations, 1995 reads as under: 7.(1) The Board may, suo-moto or upon information received by it, cause an investigation to be made in respect of the conduct and affairs of any person buying, selling or otherwise dealing in securities, by an investigating officer whom the Board considers fit. Provided that no such investigation shall be made except for the purposes specified in sub-regulation 92). (2) The purposes referred to in sub-regulation (1) are the following namely- (a) to ascertain whether there are any circumstances which would render any person guilty of having contravened any of these regulations or any d....
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....plaint, Annexure 'C' appended along with the complaint is the report of investigation dated 10.8.2000 which discloses that during the course of investigation the Board had noted several discrepancies in the Share Transfer Record of the petitioner no.1. They were informed to Sharwan Mangla, Senior Manager of the company. During the visit of this Senior Manager on 09.10.2000 additional discrepancies were noted in respect of distribution schedule submitted by the company to the Stock Exchanges and the SEBI. These were also pointed out. It was agreed that a detailed letter would be sent to petitioner no.1 pointing out these discrepancies noted in the share transfer record/distribution schedule and their explanation would be sought. There was a rider that a questionnaire will be sent to the company to be answered by it. Thus at this stage it cannot be said that even prima facie there was no explanation given by the Board in this intervening gap. 19 The Supreme Court in (2013) 2 SCC 435 Udai Shanker Awasthi Vs. State of U.P. and Anr. while reiterating the proposition that a criminal offence is considered as a wrong against the State and the society as a whole, even though it is committe....