“Anything that I can see, all parties before me are entitled to see.” HC disapproves of presenting information to Court in ‘sealed cover’ [Read Judgment]

Bombay high court judge, Justice Gautam Patel, in a case related to financial distortion by a stock exchange company, refused to accept submissions of information in ‘sealed cover’ procedure stating, “I am making it abundantly clear that at least in my Court there is no question—and there will never be a question—of anything being done ‘in sealed cover’. Anything that I can see, all parties before me are entitled to see.”

Facts

The petition was filed by multiple aggrieved parties accusing the respondent no.1 Anugrah stocks and brokers Pvt. Ltd., a trading member on NSE, and respondent no.2 Teji Mandi Analytics Pvt. Ltd., a sub-broker, of illegal and unauthorized trading in the stock market causing petitioners extensive monetary and financial losses. The petitioners claimed that respondent no.1 lured them by promising high returns and took high sums from them and made illicit trading transactions with respondent no.2 acting as sub-broker. Due to new claims rising against the respondents the court couldn’t accurately compute the losses of the petitioners but estimated the losses claimed to be in hundreds of crores.

Court Order

The court, after reviewing the assets disclosure by respondent no.1, Anugrah stocks, and brokers Pvt. Ltd., questioned and asked further explanation from the company regarding the liquidity of their accounts and financial investments. Further, the court refused to admit the material which the respondent wished to submit under ‘sealed covers’ procedure saying that  “I am making it abundantly clear that at least in my Court there is no question—and there will never be a question—of anything being done ‘in sealed cover’. Anything that I can see, all parties before me are entitled to see.” the court regarded it to be important to ensure an open and transparent decision-making process and frowned upon the respondent’s apprehensions that the material will leak into the press while defending the rights of the free press the court said  “  The press exists for a reason. It has a purpose, one that it serves. I cannot and will not curtail the rights of the free press at the instance of this or that party. I refuse to proceed on the basis that the press is always irresponsible. There will be no gag orders here.” The court granted the free choice to the respondent to either file the material in the ‘sealed covers’ and serve that to all parties or to omit to file the information and take the consequences.

The respondent was ordered to refrain any banking transactions on the listed bank accounts in the affidavit and any account under the corporate entity of Anugrah and the court’s receiver was granted symbolic possession of the assets on the affidavit.

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