SEBI v. Sunil Purohit (circular trades, TASC Pharmaceuticals, 2022)

Dismissed

✓ 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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In March 2022 a SEBI adjudicating officer closed, without penalty, a remanded case against an individual accused of circular and reversal trades in TASC Pharmaceuticals shares in 2003. The officer found the allegation could not be established because the original order and trade logs were unavailable.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

—

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

A SEBI adjudicating officer, Vijayant Kumar Verma, decided the matter on 23 March 2022. The sole noticee is Sunil Purohit, an individual who traded in TASC Pharmaceuticals Ltd through the broker Ajmera Associates. The case had returned to SEBI after the Securities Appellate Tribunal set aside a 2010 order that had imposed a Rs 1,00,000 penalty on him, and sent the matter back for a fresh decision.

The show cause notice alleged that between September and December 2003 the noticee, several brokers and other clients formed a group that put through circular trades in 2,19,935 shares, about 4.89 per cent of exchange volume, in breach of regulations 4(1), 4(2)(a), 4(2)(b) and 4(2)(g) of the PFUTP Regulations. The noticee's own share of the alleged circular trading was small.

The officer rejected the argument that the long delay barred the case, but held the allegation could not be proved. The exchange no longer held the order log, the trade log differed from the annexure sent with the notice, no connection among the entities was shown, and the investigator's figures could not be tied to the noticee's specific trades.

The adjudication proceedings were disposed of without any penalty.

The record does not show whether SEBI appealed, and the order makes no finding about whether the underlying trading in 2003 was manipulative.

This library tags the matter as wash trading. 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 one technique 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.

• Wash trading — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2022-03-23 SEBI order

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
• Order (PDF)

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

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

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

Record added October 8, 2026. submit a correction.