SAT quashes SEBI’s insider trading order against Prannoy and Radhika Roy

The Securities Appellate Tribunal yesterday quashed a 2020 order that held former NDTV promoters Prannoy and Radhika Roy guilty of insider trading. 

The order, issued by the Securities and Exchange Board of India in November 2020, had barred the Roys from the securities market for two years and told them to pay over Rs 16.97 crore made through insider trading between 2006 and 2008.

However, as reported by Bar and Bench, the SAT found that the NDTV shares traded by the Roys “were not tied to the possession of unpublished price sensitive information, contrary to the SEBI’s findings on this aspect”.

Therefore, the SAT said, “the charge of insider trading during that period cannot be sustained”.

The tribunal also said the Roys had “secured pre-trade clearance from the compliance officer of NDTV...and therefore the trades executed by these two entities was in conformity with NDTV’s code of conduct and the PIT regulations”.

The Roys quit as NDTV’s promoters in November last year, with the Adani group taking over the channel soon after. For a channel defined by the Roys for decades, past and present staffers said the channel has “changed” greatly after their exit. Read our report in Newslaundry for more.

For a detailed breakdown on who exactly owns NDTV now – and how much – check out our series on media ownership.