March 4, 2025 - The Bombay High Court today issued a four-week stay on the FIR ordered by a special Court against former SEBI chief Madhabi Puri Buch and five other officials. A single Bench of Justice Shivkumar Dige was listening to a plea filed by Buch and parties seeking to quash the FIR order. While giving his verdict, Justice Dige noted that the Special Court's March 1 order was “passed mechanically without going into the details.” 

An FIR had been filed against Buch, three current whole-time directors of SEBI, Ashwani Bhatia, Ananth Narayan G and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney - plus two BSE officials Pramod Agarwal and Sundararaman Ramamurthy by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on the direction of Special Judge Shashikant Eknathrao Bangar. Judge Bangar was acting on a petition filed by Thane-based journalist Sapan Shrivastava who alleged stock market fraud and regulatory violations against the former SEBI chairperson and five other officials in matters pertaining to the 1994 Cals Refineries stock listing case.

"After hearing all the parties concerned and after going through the order of the Special Court, it appears that the order is passed mechanically without going into details and without attributing any specific role to the applicants (Buch and others)," Justice Dige said.