New Delhi: The Supreme Court has upheld the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT)'s 2022 order clearing Biocon's managing director Shreehas P. Tambe of insider trading charges when he was vice president of the company in 2017.

While rejecting the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi)'s appeal, a bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice N.K. Singh said that it is "not inclined to interfere with the impugned judgment/order (of the appellate tribunal)", clarifying that "the same shall not be treated as a binding precedent".

In August 2022, the SAT had quashed the insider trading charges against Tambe and also the capital markets regulator's June 2021 order that restrained him from accessing the securities market and prohibited him from being associated with any listed company for three months.

The tribunal said that Tambe had sought pre-clearance from Biocon to sell the shares of the company since the trading window was not closed.

The company granted him pre-clearance to sell the shares, and accordingly, he sold the shares during December 19–27, 2017. The top court has now upheld the SAT order.

Sebi had alleged that Tambe had traded in Biocon's shares while in possession of unpublished price-sensitive information pertaining to the company's collaboration with Sandoz.

Sebi had also alleged that Tambe had sold 17,440 shares of Biocon during December 19–27, 2017, and made a delayed disclosure beyond the stipulated period of 48 hours, violating the insider trading rules.