NEW DELHI: In a major relief to NDTV promoters Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy in the “wrongful gains by insider trading” case, the Supreme Court today directed the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) to hear their appeal against the SEBI penalty of over Rs 16.97 crores, without asking for any deposit. The bench added that no amount shall be coercively recovered from the appellants for hearing the case. 

The SAT had earlier directed the promoters of NDTV to deposit 50 per cent of the disgorged amount, which they allegedly made via wrongful insider trading, before markets regulator SEBI. 

This came after the promoter couple had filed an appeal against a November 2020 order by SEBI that barred them from the securities market for two years and also directed them to disgorge illegal gains of Rs 16.97 crore for indulging in insider trading around 12 years ago. NDTV has continuously denied all the charges, however, in the last hearing last month, they had offered NDTV shares as security fee in the matter. 

SEBI had imposed a penalty on them for alleged violation of various securities norms by concealing information from shareholders regarding certain loan agreements. The markets regulator had noted that the duo together made the gains by indulging in insider trading in the shares of New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) while in possession of unpublished price sensitive information (UPSI) relating to the proposed reorganisation of the company.

Prannoy Roy was the chairman and whole time director and Radhika Roy was the managing director during the period under investigation and were part of the decision making chain that had led to crystallisation of the UPSI.