Kolte-Patil Developers, 2 other settle case with Sebi

Kolte-Patil Developers Ltd and two others on Friday settled with markets regulator Sebi, a case pertaining to the alleged violations of listing and disclosure rules, on payment of over Rs 63 lakh towards the settlement amount. The other two applicants who settled the case are -- G L Vishwanath and Manasa Vishwanath, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in an order.

This comes after three applicants proposed to settle the alleged violations of LODR (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations "without admitting or denying the findings" through a settlement order.

"The instant adjudication proceedings initiated against Kolte-Patil Developers Limited (KPDL), G L Vishwanath and Manasa Vishwanath vide aforesaid Show Cause Notice ...dated February 3, 2022, are hereby disposed of," Sebi said.

In its show cause notice issued to the entities, KPDL made wrong disclosures of Related Party Transactions on three occasions in two half-yearly disclosures of financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20.

Also, the Pune-based real estate firm allegedly did not disclose amendments to the Memorandum of Association (MoA) and Articles of Association (AoA) within 24 hours from the passing of the shareholder resolution in March 2019 and allegedly failed to comply with rules pertaining to independent directors and it allegedly did not have a minimum number of independent directors in the audit committee.

LODR Regulations specify that an independent director should not be related to promoters or directors of the company or subsidiary. However, two independent directors on the board of the company -- G L Vishwanath and Manasa Vishwanath -- were directly related to each other, being husband and wife.

Pending adjudication proceedings initiated through show cause notice, the entities filed applications with Sebi to settle the case and the markets regulator recommended to settling the case on payment of the settlement amount. Accordingly, Kolte-Patil Developers paid Rs 41.92 lakh, while G L Vishwanath and Manasa Vishwanath remitted Rs 10.72 lakh each.