The High Court of Bombay has continued till tomorrow ‘protection from arrest’ granted to an analyst, who has sought anticipatory bail following a complaint lodged by Indiabulls Financial Services that he and his firm tried to extort money for holding back an adverse report.
The applicant Nitin Mangal has been asked by Justice R C Chavan to appear before Cyber Crime Branch of Mumbai police who are investigating the case and answer its queries.
According to Indiabulls, due to an adverse research report by the company for which Mangal was working, Indiabulls share price dropped on August 8 last year. Further, it says, it had been asked to shell out USD 40,000, if the reports were to be withheld from publication for a day.
However, Mangal contends in his anticipatory bail plea that the drop in the share price was due to shortcomings in the accounts and corporate governance practises of Indiabulls.
His lawyer Amit Dube submitted that Mangal was just a co-author of the report written by Niraj Monga. Both worked for Canada-based Veritas Investment Research Corporation, which makes its reports available only to its subscribers.
“If the company was in the business of research and making reports, it is enigmatic that the company was ready to hold the report for a prospective subscriber who was expected to cough up USD 40,000 as subscription,” the Court observed posting Mangal’s bail plea for order for tomorrow.
