A PIL was filed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking a comprehensive investigation into the allegations of stock market manipulation and accounting fraud against the Adani group in the Hindenburg report.

The petition also questioned the role of the LIC and the SBI in investing public money in the entity “without due diligence”.

This is the third PIL in the apex court on the issue. While the present petition seeking action against the Adani group and others has been filed by Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Jaya Thakur, the other two PILs have been filed by advocates Manohar Lal Sharma and Vishal Tiwari.

Sharma and Tiwari had sought action against Hindenburg Research for its report that they said had caused huge losses to lakhs of investors.

A bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud had earlier sought the response of market regulator Sebi and the Centre on the two earlier PILs. The present PIL filed through advocate Varun Thakur has sought a direction for a comprehensive probe by various agencies like the CBI, SFIO, RBI, NCB, DRI, CBDT and the ED into the alleged fraud committed by the Adani group.

According to the petition, the January 24 disclosure in the Hindenburg report has “put serious question mark upon Respondent No. 13 (the Adani group)” and the finding of the report indicates that the group “has inflated share price of their various companies and by using the inflated price they have obtained loans worth Rs 82,000 crores from various public sectors and private banks… which is evident from the crash of share prices of shares of various companies of Respondent No. 13, subsequent to publication of the Hindenburg report, as the share price of shares of various companies of Adani Group has come down upto 50%”.

The petitioner alleged that the LIC, the SBI and several public sectors companies had invested huge amounts at the rate of Rs 3,200 rupees per share, whereas in the secondary market the share was prevailing at Rs 1,600 to Rs 1,800, “which indicates that the Respondent No. 11(LIC) and the Respondent No. 12 (SBI) without due diligence have put several thousands of crores rupees of public money at risk, it is not understood that what was their objective and to whom