Supreme Court judge Justice K Vinod Chandran on Monday recused from hearing a plea seeking directions to authorities to investigate allegations made by US short seller Viceroy Research that billionaire Anil Agarwal’s mining conglomerate was “financially unsustainable” and posing severe risk to creditors.
Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters
Taking note of Justice Chandran’s recusal, the bench also comprising Chief Justice of India B R Gavai and Atul Chandurkar adjourned the plea filed by advocate Shakti Bhatia.
Bhatia, in his plea, contended that he independently corroborated portions of the Viceroy report, particularly regarding undisclosed related-party transactions, by reviewing MCA21 filings, Sebi disclosures and Registrar of Companies records.
The petition submitted that certain high-value transactions involved counterparties neither declared as related parties nor subjected to shareholder approval as mandated.
Viceroy Research had released a report charging billionaire Agarwal’s mining conglomerate as “financially unsustainable” and posing a severe risk to creditors, allegations which the group called “selective misinformation and baseless” aimed at discrediting the group.
Viceroy had said it was shorting the debt stack of Vedanta Resources, the parent company and majority owner of Mumbai-listed Vedanta Ltd, as it released the 85-page report.
Shorting debt, also known as short selling of bonds, is a trading strategy where an investor looks to profit from a decline in the price of bonds or other debt instruments.
It involves borrowing the bond, selling it at the current market price, and then buying it back later at a potentially lower price to return to the lender, pocketing the difference as profit.
Calling Vedanta Resources Ltd (VRL) a “heavily indebted parent”, Viceroy said, “The entire group structure is financially unsustainable, operationally compromised, and poses a severe, under-appreciated risk to creditors.”
