New Delhi: Eminent legal expert and senior advocate Harish Salve has issued a warning about organisations like US short-seller Hindenburg Research, saying if not checked, they will question the country's judiciary one day. Hindenburg, he said, is discredited even in the US, but here, "we are giving it credibility... why treat Hindenburg as an oracle or gospel?'
While the allegations of Hindenburg against the Adani Group last year had triggered a storm, its latest salvo targeting SEBI (Securities Exchange Board of India) chief Madhabi Puri Buch and the Adani Group, had industry, the ruling BJP, investors and experts rallying around.
"In any other country people would have said Hindenburg report belongs to garbage bin... Hindenburg is trying to browbeat SEBI... There should be a tribunal for defamation in India.. Tomorrow, such bodies won't spare even judges," Mr Salve, a former Solicitor General told NDTV in an exclusive interview.
He also said it is "shameful" that a section of political leaders are taking Hindenburg seriously.
"Why do people get away with wild allegations? In india, we don't respect people's reputation... It is time we started taking Indian reputation seriously," he said, contending that Hindenburg is "mocking India".
The Adani Group has dismissed the allegations as "malicious, mischievous and manipulative selections of publicly available information" to arrive at "predetermined conclusions for personal profiteering with wanton disregard for facts and the law".
investors have also rejected the latest Hindenburg allegations, with benchmark indices ending largely flat on Monday, against the predictions of many, including Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, about an imminent crash brought about by the report.
(Disclaimer: New Delhi Television is a subsidiary of AMG Media Networks Limited, an Adani Group Company.)