SAT upholds Sebi order banning Sharma from the securities market for a year.
The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has dismissed First Global Stock Broking’s Vice Chairman and Joint Managing Director Shankar Sharma’s appeal against the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi’s) order barring him from trading in the securities market for a year.
Sebi had passed the order in February this year after finding Sharma guilty of synchronising trades in certain scrips on a large scale, resulting in creation of artificial volumes in those scrips.
The appellant had been avoiding a decision on the merits of his transactions without filing a reply to any of the showcause notices issued to him, said SAT.
Sharma, Sebi’s investigations revealed, executed a large number of transactions in ten securities, including Global Tele Systems, Zee Telefilms, Wipro, Satyam Computers, MTNL, SBI and Infosys Technologies, in early 2001.
First Global, a registered stock broker as well as a portfolio manager with Sebi, has Vruddhi Confinvest India as its sub-broker. Sharma and his wife Devina Mehra are promoter-directors of both the companies. In September 2002, investigations found both the companies guilty and ordered cancellation of their certificates of registration.
In its order, SAT said, “He (Sharma) was the buyer as well as the seller. The buy and sell orders were put into the system at almost the same time.” Terming such trades fictitious, SAT questioned, “How can a person buy from himself and sell to himself? Such trades are only meant to create artificial volumes and they disturb the market equilibrium.”
The tribunal said Sharma executed fictitious trades by taking opposite positions. “The trades were also manipulative in as much as the buy and sell orders were placed at almost the same time. No fault can be found with the impugned order.”
