Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI): Maninder Cheema, Adjudicating Officer, while affirming the violations under Regulation 3 (a), (b), (c), (d) and 4 (1) and 4(2)(a) of PFUTP Regulations, imposed a monetary penalty of Rupees Five Lakh, under Section 15-I of SEBI Act.
In the instant case, it was alleged that the Noticees executed reversal trades in the scrip which were non-genuine in nature and carried out without any change of beneficial ownership merely to generate artificial volume in the scrip which created a misleading impression of liquidity in the scrip and may have induced investors to buy or sell in illiquid scrip.
The Tribunal while affirming the allegations held that, “the material on record has not brought out any disproportionate gain made by the Noticees or loss caused to investors by the Noticees. However, the Noticees carried out a deliberate act of creating fictitious volumes in the scrip over a period of 40 days which may have induced several innocent investors to buy the stock at the time. In view of the above, taking into account the facts and circumstances of this matter, I find that a penalty of Rs.5,00,000/- (Rupees Five Lakh only) each on Noticees 1 to 10 under Section 15HA of the SEBI Act will be commensurate with the violations committed by them”.[Ram Minerals and Chemicals Limited, In re, Order/MC/HP/2021-2022/12835-12844, decided on 30-07-2021]
Agatha Shukla, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.
