Barred by Sebi from accessing capital markets, realty giant DlF on Wednesday sought interim relief from Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) to allow it to redeem funds locked in mutual funds and other instruments.
After hearing the petition filed by India's largest realty developer last week against the ban, SAT Presiding Officer J P Devadhar adjourned the matter to October 30, and sought response from the capital markets regulator on DlF's plea for an interim relief.
Pleading for relief, the Delhi-based realtor said it needs to redeem funds, including around Rs 2,000 crore locked in mutual funds as also through redemption of some bonds worth thousands of crores, but the Sebi has restrained it and six others including top executives from tapping capital markets for three years.
DlF had received shareholders approval last month to raise up to Rs 5,000 crore through non-convertible debentures.
The full SAT Bench headed by Devadhar and comprising members Jog Singh and A S lamba, wanted response from Sebi by this afternoon itself to consider any interim relief. However, the regulator's counsel Jamshed Cama said his client's offices are closed for Diwali holidays.
Devadhar observed that Sebi, while passing its order, should have envisaged the impact of its regulatory actions on the investors, who have lost more than Rs 7,500 crore of their wealth following the unprecedented ban imposed last week.
"What were you doing all these seven years and when the company applied for IPO way back in 2007IJ Why didn't you envisage the impact of your actions on the investors as they have lost more than Rs 7,500 crore of their wealth even as you try to be a world class regulatorIJ" Devadhar told Cama.
To this, the Sebi counsel said if DlF were to be believed, they did not disclose information about three subsidiaries (Sudipti, Shalika and Felicite) during IPO launch arguing that they were of no material value.
Sebi also questioned DlF's decision to allow wives of senior executives to remain invested in those companies.
Describing the October 13 Sebi action as a "death warrantand not a ban from the market, senior DlF counsel Janak Dwarakadas said there was no precedent wherein with one single stroke the watchdog's action, instead of protecting the investors, led to a decline of Rs 7,500 crore in m-cap.
The DlF counter tanked a whopping 28 per cent on the stockmarket on October 14, wiping out over Rs 7,500 crore of investor wealth. During intra-day trading, the DlF stock had plunged close to 40 per cent.