SEBI v. K Venkatraman (reversal trades, Coromandel Fertilizers, 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 April 2022 a SEBI adjudicating officer closed, without penalty, a remanded case against an individual accused of reversal trades in Coromandel Fertilizers shares in 2003. The officer gave him the benefit of doubt because his account-opening records were missing and no demat account was linked to his PAN.

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, Maninder Cheema, decided the matter on 28 April 2022. The sole noticee is K Venkatraman, and the shares are those of Coromandel Fertilizers Limited. A June 2009 order had imposed a penalty of Rs 5 lakh on him, but the Securities Appellate Tribunal quashed it in March 2021 because the show cause notice had not been served, and sent the matter back for a fresh hearing.

SEBI's investigation followed alerts from NSE and BSE. Between October and December 2003 the closing price rose from Rs 81.45 to Rs 150.25, an increase of about 84 per cent. The sub-broker Dove Securities, trading through ISE Securities, accounted for 15.41 per cent of gross traded quantity, and three of its clients including the noticee each traded on five of 44 days, he accounting for about 2.4 per cent of market quantity. SEBI alleged that these clients entered reversal trades in breach of regulations 4(1), 4(2)(a), (b) and (g) of the PFUTP Regulations.

The noticee said he had never traded and that his identity documents had been misused. The officer found that his account-opening forms were not on record, the depositories reported no demat account linked to his PAN, and nothing but the exchange data showing his name tied him to Dove Securities. Given the passage of time, as the trades dated from 2003, he was given the benefit of doubt.

The proceedings were disposed of with no penalty.

The record does not show whether SEBI appealed, and the order makes no finding about whether the reversal trades were manipulative or who executed them.

This library tags the matter as matched orders and 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 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2022-04-28 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.

Related actions

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

Record added October 8, 2026. submit a correction.