Sitharaman on SC comment over Adani-Hindenburg row: "What I will tell the court"

A day after Supreme Court sought a response from the finance ministry and SEBI on how to ensure protection of the investors in Adani Group, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday reacted, saying, "Indian regulators are very very experienced. They are very seized of this matter".

Replying to a query on Supreme Court observation, Sitharaman added, "They (Indian regulators) are on their toes as always, not just now. So I will leave it there. You obviously are not expecting me to tell you what I would tell in the court."

The apex court of India has on Friday, while hearing a petition commented, "Do we intervene and have a mechanism to ensure this doesn't happen again? We do not want to get into policy matters. That is for the government."

The petition sought the Supreme Court's intervention in the Adani row.

"We have indicated to the Solicitor General, the concern about the regulatory process and [to see that] Indian investors are protected over the incident in the last two weeks," the Chief Justice said.

It is worth noting here that the finance minister has allayed investors' fears in the past and assured that one incident will not have any impact on India's image in the international market.

Both LIC and SBI issued statements clarifying that their exposure to Adani stocks was within the permitted limit.

Meanwhile, Financial Times has claimed that Adani Group has hired US legal firm Wachtell to take on Hindenburg research.

“In recent days, the Adani Group has tapped senior lawyers at New York’s Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to advise it on how to stem the crisis facing the Indian conglomerate since Hindenburg accused it of accounting fraud and stock market manipulation in late January," the FT report said quoting sources.