The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has stayed a SEBI order that barred Franklin Templeton’s Asia Pacific (APAC) head Vivek Kudva and his wife Roopa from the securities market for a year.
The charge against the couple is that they redeemed their mutual fund units when the schemes were facing significant redemption pressure and eventually those schemes were wound up on April 23, 2020.
Also, the regulator levied a total penalty of ₹7 crore on the couple. Besides, they were asked to jointly and severally transfer ₹22.64 crore redeemed of Franklin Templeton MF schemes to an escrow account.
Pursuant to this, Kudvas filed an appeal in the tribunal against the Sebi’s order.
In an order on Thursday, the SAT said the SEBI order “shall remain stayed during the pendency of the appeal. In so far as the direction to keep the redemption amount in an escrow account, the said direction will continue”.
With regard to the penalty, the tribunal directed them to deposit 50% of the penalty amount within three weeks.
The tribunal has given four weeks to SEBI to file a reply and a rejoinder may be filed within four weeks thereafter. The matter has been listed for August 30, 2021.
