SEBI v. Gautam Sanjay Khandelwal and others (SMS buy tips, Supreme Tex Mart, 2022)

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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In July 2022 a SEBI whole-time member barred eleven noticees from the securities market for six years and ordered nine to disgorge unlawful gains of about Rs 14.26 crore plus interest, in a case where bulk SMS tips urged buying Supreme Tex Mart shares while promoters and linked entities sold in 2016. The listed company itself was in liquidation and its proceeding was disposed of.

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

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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

A whole-time member of SEBI issued this final order on 6 July 2022 in the matter of Supreme Tex Mart Ltd (STML), listed on BSE. Twelve noticees were named, including SMS sender Gautam Sanjay Khandelwal, Radheshyam Neeleshkumar Lahoti, Goldleaf International, members of the Gupta family, the company, a firm called Future Fintrade, and an overseas investor, SINDIA Investment Group PTE Ltd. The order follows two interim orders of February and November 2017, a confirmatory order of October 2018 and an impounding order of March 2019.

SEBI's case, as set out in the order, was that STML's promoters and directors and related entities carried out a premeditated practice in which SMS messages recommending 'BUY' were sent indirectly while related entities sold into the volume the messages created. It said the promoters or directors offloaded more than 27 percent of the company's shares between July and September 2016, and that 16 connected entities were linked by common contacts, addresses and funding. A show cause notice was issued on 4 September 2019.

The order directs a six-year restraint on eleven noticees, set off against the debarment already served under the interim orders, and a direction to nine of them to disgorge the unlawful gains computed in the March 2019 impounding order, about Rs 14.26 crore plus roughly Rs 3.97 crore interest to February 2019, with further interest at 12 percent a year from the impounding order. The proceeding against the company was disposed of because it is in liquidation. The disgorgement against two erstwhile directors is subject to a personal insolvency process they had initiated.

The order states that the notice did not allege any investor loss and leaves investors free to pursue other remedies. No monetary penalty is recorded in this order; the money ordered is disgorgement and is described here in rupees only.

The record does not show whether the disgorgement was paid, whether any appeal was filed, or the identity of the SMS recipients.

This library tags the matter as pump and dump. 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2022-07-06 SEBI final 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

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.