The bench has admitted the petition and will in due course give its verdict on the petitioners' plea that Sebi's action of passing interim orders of this kind under Section 11B were against the principles of natural justice and violated the fundamental rights of the concerned brokers.

In its verdict pronounced on Saturday, the bench observed that the ad-interim order passed by the high court onNovember 1, and then continued on November 3, is vacated.

However, the order of the court is stayed for a period of four weeks during which the three brokerages in question will not be allowed to trade in the scrips where they have been charged for price manipulation. While the scrips - Sterlite Industries, BPL and Videocon International - are common to all the three brokers, in the case of Harvest Deal Securities, where BSE vice-president Rajendra Banthia is the main director, it also includes Nedungadi Bank. The brokers whose terminals had earlier been deactivated by the BSE will, however, not be able to derive any benefit from the current order of the court. Two other brokers, had mid-way through the hearings, filed their appeals as well. These brokers' terminals had been deactivated in June itself. The three brokers had last Sunday obtained a stay from the vacation judge. The stay had continued during the pendency of the admission petition before the division bench.

Meanwhile, Sebi has startedrecording the statement of Harshad Mehta, an accused in the prime manipulation case against whom investigations have been launched by the regulator.

Mehta has been charged for having manipulated the prices of certain scrips through seven front companies which had acted in concert with about 34 brokers.

Mehta visited the Sebi headquarters for recording his statement on Friday and was to appear again on Saturday. On Friday, however, Mehta released a statement to the media saying that he had written to the Sebi chairman that the regulator had no powers to issue summons to him, as summons can be issued only to intermediaries.

He also denied the charges levelled against him by Sebi of having manipulated the market. He also cited the case of Pawan Sachdeva, who, according to him, was also victimised but against whom no evidence was found to hold him guilty.