 "Sebi levies Rs 40 lakh fine on B P Equities, others for violation of norms")
Markets regulator Sebi on Monday levied a total fine of Rs 40 lakh on B P Equities Pvt Ltd, Jamson Securities Pvt Ltd and an individual for violation of market norms while dealing in the scrip of Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd.
The order follows an investigation conducted during January-May 2020.
Sebi noted that B P Equities and Shaunak Jagdish Shah violated Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices norms "by misleading the order book by buy orders of 14.87 crores shares which have been rejected by the exchange system for insufficiency of margin and which have been deleted by the Noticees themselves."
It had created misleading appearance of orders in Ruchi Soya's scrip. It was also observed that Shah had placed buy orders for his father through their stock broker -- Jamson Securities -- and BP Equities had placed buy orders for its proprietary trades.
Being Sebi-registered intermediaries in the capacity of stock brokers, they had failed to exercise due skill and care while placing the orders in the scrip of Ruchi Soya, the regulator said.
Shah is a director of Jamson Securities.
"Noticee 1 (B P Equities) had failed to exercise proper due diligence in identifying the order placement mechanism in its own account in the form of placing buy orders in large quantities from different terminals without meeting the margin requirements.
More From This Section
"Similarly, the Noticee 3 (Jamson Securities) had failed to ensure sufficiency of margins while placing huge buy orders on behalf of the Noticee 2 ( Shaunak Jagdish Shah)," Sebi noted.
For violation of market norms, they were imposed fines in the range of Rs 5 lakh to Rs 20 lakh each.