Almost every application has a certain image attached to it. There are the more fun and informal ones like Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, then you have your Facebooks that seem more like family groups, there is also LinkedIn and such that have a more professional and formal vibe to them.
Although many apps like WhatsApp and all are venturing into other areas like payments and business, etc, who would have thought that a day would come where official documents, summons and notices would also be sent through WhatsApp?
This is exactly what is going to be happening with the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) announcement that they would now also be sending summons and show cause notice through instant messaging networks along with their existing methods of physical delivery and electronic emails.
What Is SEBI Going To Do?
As reported by The Economic Times, SEBI is now going to be adding instant messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram to their official roster of methods through which they can send summon, notices and more.
Currently, SEBI sends such documents through either registered post, fax, courier or electronic mail. With this move, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal are being added to their methods of sending out information. Apparently, this was done to make the process of sending information faster and more efficient.
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Zerick Dastur, Founder of Zerick Dastur, advocates and solicitors, while speaking to ET said that “The law and regulation concerning the securities market and the regulatory framework continues to see dynamic changes from time to time. In an effort to smoothen the system of adjudication and issuance of timely processes, the manner of service of notices and orders has also undergone changes to meet with the needs of time.”
The lockdowns and restrictions on movement due to the COVID-19 pandemic further sped up SEBI’s decision-making process to add these channels to their list. Due to those limitations, certain people could escape away from official communications, the instant messaging platforms would prevent that from happening.
The process was also smoothened out for SEBI with the Supreme Court allowing instant messaging apps to be used to send legal notices and more in 2020.
A bench of then Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, and Justices R.S. Reddy and A.S. Bopanna, along with inputs from Attorney General K.K. Venugopal and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, had given the verdict that instant messaging apps and other forms of electronic communication would now be considered legally valid when sending judicial notices and summons.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: The Economic Times, CNBCTV18, Live Law
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This post is tagged under: SEBI Notices WhatsApp, SEBI, Notices WhatsApp, SEBI Notices, WhatsApp, Securities and Exchange Board of India, sebi show cause notices, securities market, supreme court, telegram
