R.F. Nariman, J. - (1.) The present appeal raises an interesting question as to whether an administrative circular that is issued by SEBI under Section 11(1) of the Securities Exchange Board of India Act, 1992, can be the subject matter of appeal under Section 15T of the said Act.
(2.) By an administrative circular dated 9th November, 2005, SEBI under the caption "review of dematerialization charges" issued an administrative circular under Section 11(1) of the SEBI Act to protect the interests of investors in securities and to promote the development of, and to regulate the securities market. Depositories were advised by the said circular to amend all relevant bye-laws, rules and regulations in order to see that with effect from 9th January, 2006, no charges shall be levied by a depository on DPs and consequently by a DP on a beneficiary owner when a beneficiary owner transfers all securities lying in his account to another branch of the same DP or to another DP of the same depository or another depository, provided the BO account at transferee DP and that transferor DP are identical in all respects.
(3.) A preliminary objection was raised in the appeal filed by the respondent before the Securities Appellate Tribunal. It was urged that under the SEBI Act, SEBI has administrative, legislative and quasi-judicial functions. Appeals preferred to the Securities Appellate Tribunal can only be from quasi-judicial orders and not administrative and legislative orders. This preliminary objection was turned down by the impugned judgment dated 29th September, 2006, by the Securities Appellate Tribunal. According to the Tribunal, the expression "order" is extremely wide, and there being nothing in the Act to restrict an appeal only against quasi-judicial orders, appeals would lie against all three types of orders under the Act i.e. administrative orders, legislative orders as well as quasi-judicial orders. This was held purportedly following the decision in Clariant International Ltd. & Anr. v. Securities & Exchange Board of India [(2004) 8 SCC 524] . The Tribunal, therefore, rejected the preliminary objection and went into the merits of the arguments against the impugned circular, and dismissed the same.;