SEBI v. Abhay Dwivedi and others (YouTube promotion, Decillion Finance, 2026)

Judgment entered

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 8, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, in a single reading of the order; an independent second reading of 60 SEBI records agreed on every field for 56, the four misses being penalty amounts; a later sample of 50 of the SEBI records added on 9 October agreed on every field for 46. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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A SEBI adjudicating officer found in August 2026 that videos on a YouTube channel promoted Decillion Finance shares while connected traders bought and sold, with the price rising from about Rs 22 to Rs 95 between October 2022 and January 2023. The order imposes PFUTP penalties on eleven noticees and takeover-code disclosure penalties on others.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

—

Alleged gain

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A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The adjudication order of 3 August 2026 was made by a SEBI adjudicating officer in Mumbai on a show-cause notice of 19 September 2025. It names twenty-three noticees in the matter of Decillion Finance Limited (DFL), among them Abhay Dwivedi and Anshu Mishra, said to have uploaded the videos; family and associates who traded; and companies that held shares. This record lists twelve of them.

SEBI's investigation covered 20 October 2022 to 14 February 2023. DFL's price rose from Rs 22.55 to Rs 95.10 by 17 January 2023 and closed at Rs 61.25 on 14 February 2023. Information from Google LLC showed that Mr Dwivedi and Ms Mishra uploaded two videos on the YouTube channel Stock Yatra on 1 and 14 January 2023, and some noticees traded in the weeks around them. The notice alleged price manipulation and fraud under section 12A of the SEBI Act and the PFUTP Regulations, and failures by some holders to make takeover-code disclosures.

The order holds the PFUTP violations established against Noticees 1 to 7, 11, 12 and 23, noting that several had been subject to earlier SEBI action in other matters, and holds that Noticees 3 to 7 and 18 to 22 failed to make the required disclosures of their holdings under the takeover regulations. It describes the scheme as premeditated and well orchestrated and as harming investors.

Penalties under section 15HA include Rs 2 crore imposed jointly and severally in respect of the first two noticees and, on a separate ground, seven more, and Rs 5 lakh on Mr Jaiswal. Disclosure penalties under section 15A(b) are Rs 5 lakh, Rs 4 lakh and Rs 1 lakh on the groups concerned. Because the order words the Rs 2 crore liability across overlapping groups, this record gives no single total. No restraint or disgorgement is ordered.

The record does not show appeals or payment, or investor losses. It describes no criminal case.

This library tags the matter as social media ramps and price manipulation. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the order.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with 2 techniques in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Social media ramps — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.
• Price manipulation — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2026-08-03 SEBI adjudication order imposing penalties

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEBI order
• SEBI order (PDF)

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added October 8, 2026. submit a correction.