The Supreme Court has refused to stay allotment of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) shares post its mega IPO, or initial public offering. On Thursday a bench of justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and PS Narasimha said they were reluctant to grant such relief in matters of investment and IPOs. The petitions were filed by policy holders questioning the change in character of the state-owned insurance giant – from mutual benefit society to joint stock company.
“We are not inclined to grant any interim relief,” the court said and issued notice to the Centre and LIC seeking responses to the pleas within eight weeks.
The court also pointed out this issue – a pending matter on the issue of passage of the Finance Act, 2021 as a money bill – is before a Constitution bench of seven judges and tagged today’s petitions to be heard with those batch of cases.
The bench also noted one of the pleas was challenging a Bombay High Court interim order and disposed of it, saying it was transferred to the Supreme Court.
On the aspect of interim relief, the Supreme Court said it must be guided by the well-settled principle of prima facie case, balance of convenience and whether there is any irreparable injury.
The LIC IPO opened May 4 for retail and other investors and closed May 9.
Shares are set to be allotted today.
Those who have applied for shares will be able to check the IPO allotment status online – by either logging in to the BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) website or that of its registrar KFin Technologies Ltd.