The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asked the appeals court to uphold a judgement by a district court that banned former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta for life from serving as director of a public corporation and imposed a penalty of $13.9 million.

The regulator has said asked the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to uphold the decision of the lower court saying that court acted well within its discretion by banning the India-born trader from associating with brokers, dealers, and investment advisors or serving as an officer or director of a public company.

Rajat Gupta, who was the former director at Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble, was earlier released on a bail of $ 10 million in the US. Rajat Gupta was freed after he pleaded not guilty to charges of securities fraud and that he passed insider information to his friend Raj Rajaratnam, who is a billionaire businessman. Gupta's lawyer, Gary Naftalis of Kramer Levin Naftalis& Frankel allege that he sometimes lost his entire investment in Rajaratnam's hedge fund.

Gupta has been granted time till April 7 to file his reply to the SEC brief.