The trust had charged Hindustan Lever with suppressing price-sensitive information when it sold 8 lakh shares to the company just ahead of the merger with Brooke Bond Lipton India.

The trust, which had informed the Mumbai high court on November 16 that it would file its petition before December 7, did so on Friday. The petition is expected to come up for admission on December 7, along with the Hindustan Lever counter-petition challenging parts of the appellate authority order.

In its petition, the trust, by and large, has made the same arguments as it had proferred in its appeal before the appellate authority. "We have contended that price-sensitive information was supressed from us and that Sebi has the powers to award compensation to us. We have sought Rs 7.52 crore, the amountwe had sought from the appellate authority," said a trust source.

Sebi had held the company and five of its directors guilty of insider- trading. Apart from ordering prosecution against the directors, Sebi had directed the company to compensate Unit Trust Rs 3.04 crore as the notional loss suffered by it in the transaction.

Hindustan Lever appealled against the Sebi order. At this stage, the trust stepped in with an appeal seeking a higher compensation of Rs 7.52 crore from the company.

The two appeals were taken up together and in its order of July 14, the appellate authority struck down the powers of Sebi to order compensation, thus dismissing the plea of the trust, as well.

The trust had contended that once the public announcement of the merger had been made on April 19, 1996, the price of the Brooke Bond Lipton India share rose to an average of Rs 403.95. Add to this a premium of 10 per cent on block sales and the price that the trust could have got was Rs 444 a share or Rs 7.52 crore.

UnitTrust, however, chose to remain silent when the Sebi appealled against the appellate authority order. In fact it was pulled up by the division bench comprising chief justice MB Shah and justice YS Jahagirdar for not filing a petition, considering that it was holding public money.

At the hearing on September 28, the trust had sought time till the next hearing on November 16 to make its stand clear on the matter. The trust, despite making up its mind, could not file a petition and sought time. It was then decided that the trust would file its petition by December 7, the date fixed for the next hearing.