Mukesh Ambani, Richest Asian Gets Big Relief After SAT Dismisses Sebi's Order In RPL Case

The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has quashed the Securities And Exchange Board of India's (SEBI) order against India's richest Asian, Mukesh Ambani, and his company Reliance Industries (RIL), for their alleged involvement in manipulative trades in the Reliance Petroleum (RPL) stock in 2007. RPL was absorbed into RIL in 2009.

In this case pertaining to alleged manipulative trading in the shares of erstwhile RPL, the market regulator SEBI had in January 2021 passed an order against Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) managing director Mukesh Ambani, the Navi Mumbai Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and the Mumbai SEZ wherein it levied a penalty of Rs 25 crore on RIL and Rs 15 crore on Ambani.

The SEBI had also asked the Navi Mumbai Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to pay a penalty of Rs 20 crore. Ambani along with RIL and other entities had then filed a plea against the SEBI order before the SAT.

On Monday, the tribunal set aside the Rs 25-crore penalty imposed by SEBI on RIL, Rs 15 crore on Ambani, Rs 20 crore on Navi Mumbai SEZ and Rs 10 crore on Mumbai SEZ.

The market regulator had observed that a resolution was passed on March 29, 2007, approving an operating plan for the year 2007-2008 and resource requirements for the subsequent two years i.e. about Rs. 87,000 crore. Thereafter, RIL opted to offload around 5% of its shareholding in November 2007.

SEBI said RIL appointed 12 agents to undertake transactions in the November 2007 RPL Futures. The settlement period was November 1, 2007, to November 29, 2007.

According to Sebi through November that year, several transactions were undertaken by Reliance Industries in the cash segment and by the agents in the F&O segment.

It was discovered that in the last 10 minutes on November 29, 2007, trading in the cash segment resulted in a decline in the RPL shares, which also reduced the settlement price in the RPL November Futures in the F&O segment.

The share price of Reliance Industries Ltd was up 0.70% at Rs 2437.90 per share at 1:49 pm IST. At this price, RIL has a market capitalization of Rs 16,49,405.90 crore.