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The Counsel for the Petitioner claimed that, an appeal in this case, would not be an appropriate and efficacious remedy because Securities Appellate Tribunal had previously decided that the matter should be reverted back to the SEBI. However, the same was rejected by the High Court on considering the constitution of the SAT, which includes the Presiding Officer (Supreme Court Judge or Chief Justice of High Court) and Judicial Members (High Court Judge). This was observed in the case of Schneider Electric President Systems v. SEBI & Ors., [ Writ Petition (L) No. 4055 of 2021] before Hon’ble Justices, A.A Sayed and Madhav Jamdar.

The Petitioner had prayed to the court to issue a writ of certiorari to quash the order decided on January 19^th 2021 and asked for a stay of proceedings is the disposal of the petition is pending to avoid informing the shareholders and the designated stock exchange to list securities on a national exchange or deregister the company. The order of SAT was challenges by SEBI before the Supreme Court but was dismissed. After the matter was reverted back to the SEBI it gave its order on 19^th January 2021, which can be further contested through an appeal before the SAT.

Taking into account the Petitioner’s contentions and the composition of the SAT, the High Court was of the opinion that, “we do not think there is any basis in the apprehension expressed by the learned Senior Counsel that the remedy of the Appeal may not be efficacious. However, only to satisfy and allay the concerns of the Petitioner, we only say that in the event the Appeal is filed by the Petitioner, the same would be decided by the Securities Appellate Tribunal without being influenced by its earlier order dated 26-11-2019 and its observations made therein shall be treated as prima facie. We also note that as per section 15Z of SEBI Act, an Appeal lies to the Supreme Court from the order of the Securities Appellate Tribunal.”

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Judgement Reviewed by Vagisha Sagar