The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) on Wednesday came down heavily on the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in the DLF case over what it termed as ?over-regulation?. DLF has moved SAT for an interim relief following Sebi?s decision to ban the realty giant from accessing the capital market.

?You pass 10 such orders and the whole economy will crash. Is this regulation or abolition?… They (Sebi) are going more towards abolition mode than regulation…and it is clearly over-regulation. What do you get, what pleasure, out of such orders? You cannot recognise the effect of such orders. They are not to be called word-class regulators,? said Jog Singh, one of the members of the bench.

DLF’s counsel Janak Dwarkadas argued that Sebi’s inability to take any decision on his client’s plea to redeem approximately Rs 2,000 crore in mutual funds and further prolonging it due to festive holidays was hampering business operations. Sebi’s inability to decide on its application was against the interests of investors and shareholders of the company, he added.

Dwarkadas said DLF approached AMCs with whom the company holds its MF units, but they refused to act, fearing action, as the MF industry is governed by Sebi. The AMCs approached the Sebi on October 17 for redemption-related approvals, but Sebi has not responded.

?If Sebi is unable to take a decision, we will take a decision… You pass an order and close your office (due to Diwali holidays) and say whatever happens, I am not concerned? We are not saying the company is right or wrong, but the company is not able to use its own money,? said JP Devadhar, tribunal’s presiding officer and head of the three-member bench. The exact details about the AMCs, as cited in the DLF’s appeal, could not be immediately ascertained by FE.

Adjourning the case to October 30, SAT sought Sebi’s response on DLF?s interim relief plea and asked it to clarify if the firm could raise Rs 5,000 crore through NCDs, shareholder approval for which was obtained last month.

The tribunal also quashed an intervention petition filed by Kimsuk Sinha, on whose complaint the Delhi High Court had directed Sebi to probe the case.

DLF moved SAT last week, challenging a Sebi order that banned the company and six senior officials from capital markets for three years for allegedly hiding material information on its subsidiaries and legal cases against them in its IPO prospectus in 2007. This was after Sebi issued DLF a show-cause notice in June 2013.

Following the order, the DLF scrip declined nearly 30%, eroding the company’s market value by about Rs 7,500 crore. The DLF counsel argued that the Sebi order did not point to any investor prejudice and that legal ownership of subsidiaries was not relevant to the draft prospectus filed by the company for its Rs 9,000-crore public issue.

DLF’s debt stood at Rs 19,000 crore as on the quarter ended June 2014. The company, which owed lenders Rs 21,350 crore at the end of December 2012, had sold three of its non-core assets ? a premium land parcel in central Mumbai’s Lower Parel, luxury hotel chain Aman Resorts and its wind energy business ? mopping up Rs 4,889.2 crore.

DLF raised Rs 1,863 crore through an institutional placement programme in May last year to comply with Sebi’s shareholding norms.