"The Sebi act does not give any adjudicatory powers. Under law it is only a regulator,'' HLL counsel Harish Salve told finance ministry, the appellate authority.

Lever is appealing against the Sebi order to prosecute five of its directors and directing the domestic subsidiary of multinational Unilever Plc to pay UTI Rs 3.04 crore as compensation in the insider trading case. Sebi ordered on march 11 that it would launch criminal prosecution against the multinational and its five directors -- former chairman SM Datta, present chairman KB Dadiseth, and vice-chairman R Gopalakrishnan, A Lahiri and MK Sharma.

The market regulator today gave the assurance that it would not take any precipitatory action till the pendency of the appeal.

Lever hadbought 8 lakh shares of Brooke Bond Lipton India Ltd from UTI two weeks prior to the announcement of the merger at a price of Rs 350 per share on March 25, 1996. The company also denied before the appellate authority, chaired by finance secretary Montek Singh Ahluwalia, that it had knowledge about the swap ratio between the shares of HLL and BBLIL at the time of purchase.