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Bombay HC says Session Judge order is ‘mechanical’; stays registration of FIR against Buch, BSE MD others | Mumbai News – The Times of India

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Bombay HC says Session Judge order is ‘mechanical’; stays registration of FIR against Buch, BSE MD others | Mumbai News – The Times of India


MUMBAI: In a reprieve to former Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch, Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) MD Sundararaman Ramamurthy, and four others, Bombay High Court on Tuesday stayed what it termed was a “mechanical’’ order of the Mumbai special trial court that on Saturday directed Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to register an FIR against them in an alleged wrongful 1994 listing of a company, “oversight failure” and “criminal misconduct’’.
A single Judge bench of Justice S G Dige of the HC stayed the March 1 order of special Judge SE Bangar.
Justice Dige in his order said, “after going through the impugned order passed by learned Special Court, it prima facie appears that learned Judge has passed the order mechanically, without going into details and without attributing any specific role to the applicant hence impugned order is stayed till the further orders’’.
The HC adjourned the matter to April 1 to enable the complainant to file his reply to the challenges raised by all six officials.

Next hearing on April 11

Senior counsel Amit Desai for the two BSE top brass Ramamurthy and Pramod Agarwal said the complaint makes “bald and scandalous” allegations of alleged “bribe’’ against the nation’s “preeminent regulators of capital market’’ with “absolutely no particulars’’. Desai said, “today’s times rely on inflow of investments…the Sessions court order was passed without application of mind, without considering the serious aspect of the ramifications such an order on a specious and vexatious complaint can have…’’
Desai cited Supreme Court order to point out that a trial court when dealing with a private complaint must apply his mind and cannot mechanically pass order. Desai said, “it is sad and unfortunate that the Judge did not realise the seriousness of the impact of his order…and also unfortunate that a special court established for corruption cases, is not aware of the Maharashtra amendment to the Prevention of Corruption Act (PC Act) that requires prior sanction before ordering a FIR against public servants for discharge of duty.’’
He added, “if order is not stayed, the ramifications would be serious.’’ The ‘prior sanction’ was introduced in law as a salutary provision just to prevent frivolous, vexatious proceedings, added Desai.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta echoed Desai’s concern on impact of the trial court order and also submitted that the two-para complaint, filed against a 30-year-old listing was “vague and vexatious’’.
Mehta said the complainant Sapan Shrivastava is a habitual litigant on who the HC had earlier in 2019 imposed a Rs 5 lakh cost for “gross abuse of process of court’’ by filing a “frivolous” petition. Mehta representing three whole time directors of Sebi also said the HC had in 2019 directed to “file a FIR for extortion against the Petitioner (Shrivastava).
The recently retired Buch, 60, Ramamurthy and four others had on Monday approached Bombay HC l for quashing the special court order against them. Their plea was that the order was “unjust” and “harsh”, when none were even officials in 1994.
Criminal law requires specific allegations, not vague as the complainant made, yet the special ACB court did not consider lack of specifics and held to the contrary, the SG and Desai, as well as senior counsel Sudeep Pasbola for Buch, argued.
Pasbola added that the court order seemed to have more penal sections than were even mentioned in the original complaint.
Shrivastava appearing as party-in-person, sought to justify the sessions court order and his complaint. After submitting that many investors are affected when there is lack of oversight by regulators, he said he wanted time to file his reply to challenges filed by the six public servants.
Desai, with advocates Mihir Gheewala and Gopal Shenoy, took the HC through dates and the complainants’ RTI plea to argue that the complaint misrepresented before the sessions court and submitted, “Meticulous application of mind has to be there,’’ by a Judge when handling private complaints.
“See how malafide the proceeding is and how scandalous,’’ Desai argued, submitting that a ‘charade’ was created of filing a police complaint in 2024 before moving court.





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FY25 new business of life insurers rose 5% to ₹3.97 lakh cr. 

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April 23, 2025

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FY25 new business of life insurers rose 5% to ₹3.97 lakh cr. 


New business premium of life insurance companies in India increased 5.13% for the fiscal ended March to ₹3,97,336.78 crore compared to ₹3,77,960.34 crore a year earlier.

Ending a fourth month decline streak, in March the life insurers clocked a little over 2% increase in the premium to ₹61,439.11 crore (₹60,213.62 crore), the business figures released by Life Insurance Council showed.

Private life insurers fared better with 9.80% increase in the premium to ₹1,70,666.87 crore (₹1,55,437.34 crore). In March, their premium rose to ₹24,531.79 crore (₹23,913 crore).

For the fiscal market leader, the State-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) reported a 1.86% increase in new business ₹2,26,669.91 crore (₹2,22,522.99 crore). In March, the premium rose 1.67% to ₹.36,907.33 crore (₹36,300.62 crore). LIC sold 1.78 crore new policies in the year, which saw introduction of new surrender value norms in October 2024.

The new business of LIC during the fiscal included ₹62,404.58 crore from individual new business. Individual new business premium for FY25 registered a growth of 8.35% year on year.

The Council said for the individual new business premiums of the life insurers during 2024-25 went up 11.17% to ₹1,66,590.81 crore (₹1,49,851.67 crore).

It said the “strong performance” during the fiscal is on account of the life insurers focus on encouraging first-time buyers to secure comprehensive financial protection, resulting in a 4.47% growth in combined individual premium collections for March 2025.

In the group policy segment, single premiums reached ₹33,543.21 crore, with the category registering a 0.46% growth in premiums collected during March 2025. The insurers efforts to expand access was complemented by significant agent additions —over 11,15,661 new individual life insurance agents were added in 2024-25 — leading to a 7.88% growth in the cumulative agent count.

Published – April 23, 2025 09:15 pm IST



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Boeing CEO confirms China ‘stopped taking delivery’ amid Beijing-Washington tariff row – Times of India

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April 23, 2025

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Boeing CEO confirms China ‘stopped taking delivery’ amid Beijing-Washington tariff row – Times of India


Boeing on Wednesday said that China has “stopped taking delivery” of its aircraft, as tensions between Washington and Beijing over tariffs continue to disrupt the global aviation market.
The company will now begin marketing the planes to other airlines after Chinese carriers returned the planes, Aerospace giant CEO Kelly Ortberg said in an interview with CNBC.
Boeing would be “pretty pragmatic” in finding alternative buyers for the aircrafts, he added.

Boeing CEO: We’re on target for positive free cash flow in second half of year

The remarks came after reports of multiple Boeing 737 MAX jets, originally bound for Chinese airlines, were flown back to the United States. One such aircraft, destined for Xiamen Airlines, made an unplanned return to Boeing Field in Seattle on Sunday.
The shift came after US President Donald Trump raised tariffs on Chinese imports to 145% earlier this month to which the latter retaliated with its own 125% tariffs on US-made goods, including aircrafts. The decision rendered Boeing’s bestselling 737 MAX, with a market value of around $55 million, far less affordable for Chinese airlines.
The financial pressure reportedly pushed Beijing to consider measures to help its domestic carriers, especially those leasing Boeing jets.
The company reported a narrower-than-expected loss of $123 million for the first quarter, with revenues rising 18% to $19.5 billion.
In an earnings statement, Ortberg said the numbers show the company is “moving in the right direction.”
Boeing also reaffirmed plans to boost aircraft production, stating it will raise monthly output of the 737 MAX to 38 by 2025, and increase 787 Dreamliner production from five to seven per month.





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Stock markets rise for 7th day; Sensex reclaims 80k-level on rally in IT shares, FII inflows

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April 23, 2025

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Stock markets rise for 7th day; Sensex reclaims 80k-level on rally in IT shares, FII inflows


Image used for representational purpose.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Stock markets extended the winning run to seventh day on Wednesday (April 23, 2025) with benchmark BSE Sensex jumping 520 points to close above 80,000 level for the first time in four months driven by strong gains in IT and auto shares.

The 30-share Sensex rose by 520.90 points or 0.65% to settle at 80,116.49, the highest closing level since December 18. During the day, it surged 658.96 points or 0.82% to 80,254.55.

Also read | Sensex reclaims 80,000-level on global markets rally, foreign fund inflows

The NSE Nifty rallied 161.70 points or 0.67% to 24,328.95.

Foreign fund inflows and positive global trends also boosted the market sentiment, analysts said.

Among the Sensex firms, HCL Tech surged the most by 7.72% after the firm posted an 8.1% increase in consolidated net profit at ₹4,307 crore for March quarter 2024-25, mainly on account of large deals with a total contract value of about ₹25,500 crore.

Tech Mahindra, Tata Motors, Infosys, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Steel, Bharti Airtel and Maruti were also among major gainers.

Banking shares witnessed a sell-off after recent sharp gains with leading private lender HDFC Bank dropping by 1.98% to emerge as the biggest loser among Sensex shares.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, State Bank of India, Axis Bank, ITC and UltraTech Cement were also among the laggards.

In Asian markets, South Korea’s Kospi index, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng settled in the positive territory. Shanghai SSE Composite ended marginally lower.

Markets in Europe were trading significantly higher.

U.S. markets bounced back sharply on Tuesday. Nasdaq Composite surged 2.71%, Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 2.66% and S&P 500 rallied 2.51%.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) bought equities worth ₹1,290.43 crore on Tuesday, according to exchange data.

“The Indian equity market sustained its positive momentum, driven by better outcome from the latest set of IT results and optimistic forward-looking comments. However, profit-booking was visible in financials after the recent sharp rally.

“While US-China trade tensions appear to be easing, a rally in U.S. tech stocks has further bolstered overall global market sentiment,” Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Investments Limited, said.

The BSE midcap gauge climbed 0.94% and smallcap index went up by 0.26%.

Among BSE sectoral indices, BSE Focused IT surged 4.25%, IT jumped 4%, teck (3.10%), auto (2.34%), realty (1.37%), consumer discretionary (1.02%), healthcare (0.96%) and industrials (0.845).

Financial Services, bankex and consumer durables were the laggards.

As many as 2,078 stocks advanced while 1,873 declined and 155 remained unchanged on the BSE.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 1.35% to $68.35 a barrel.

The BSE benchmark climbed 187.09 points or 0.24% to settle at 79,595.59 on Tuesday. The Nifty went up by 41.70 points or 0.17% to 24,167.25.

Published – April 23, 2025 05:28 pm IST



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