PIL filed in SC against Hindenburg to declare short selling as offense after Adani Group crashes

A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court after the Adani group shares suffered losses on the stock market as a result of the release of a report by the US-based short-selling company Hindenburg Research. Advocate ML Sharma, a frequent litigant, filed a petition to classify “short-selling” as a fraud offence. The founder of Hindenburg, Nathan Anderson, is the target of his request for a probe “for abusing unsuspecting Investors by short selling under the guise of artificial crashes.”

The petitioner further demands that Anderson pay back the turnover from short sales plus penalties to make up for the investors’ losses. According to the petitioner, “Whether purposefully short selling to crash stock in the share market to square up via falling market value via contrived artificial ways is not a fraud punishable under Sections 420 and 120-B of the IPC and Section 15HA of the SEBI Act 1992.” “By murdering Indian citizens, they made billions of dollars. However, SEBI did not halt trading in the shares, particularly in relation to the Adani group of firms, allowing short sellers to take advantage of unwitting investors “According to the petition.