SEBI v. Spank Management Services and Patanjali Govind Keswani (insider trading, Varun Beverages, 2022)

Settled

✓ 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 SEBI's whole-time members settled insider-trading proceedings against a company and its owner over a January 2018 purchase of Varun Beverages shares, without admission or denial. The settlement amount was Rs 50,70,000, plus disgorgement of about Rs 14.6 lakh with interest.

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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Penalty as published

5.1m INR

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. This regulator states penalties in INR. The figure is recorded as published and is not converted, so it does not appear in the USD totals or medians used elsewhere on this site.

What is alleged to have happened

SEBI's whole-time members passed this settlement order on 25 July 2022. The applicants were Spank Management Services Private Limited and its owner Patanjali Govind Keswani, who filed a joint application to settle a show cause notice dated 29 November 2021 about trading in Varun Beverages Limited shares.

SEBI alleged that Mr Keswani, professionally connected to Ravi Kant Jaipuria, who is described as chairman of Varun Beverages, was in Bangkok with him in late December 2017 and early January 2018. It alleged that Mr Jaipuria knew that the company was entering a strategic partnership with PepsiCo India for the larger Tropicana portfolio, that this was passed to Mr Keswani, and that Spank traded on 2 January 2018 while he held it, making an actual wrongful gain of Rs 14,58,156. The alleged breaches were of sections 12A(d) and 12A(e) of the SEBI Act and Regulation 4(1) of the Prohibition of Insider Trading Regulations, 2015.

The order records no findings, because the applicants settled without admitting or denying the findings of fact and conclusions of law. An advisory committee recommended terms on 10 May 2022 and payment was received in early July.

The terms were a settlement amount of Rs 50,70,000, disgorgement of Rs 14,58,156, and interest of Rs 7,55,045 at 12 percent simple. SEBI's enforcement proceedings for these defaults were disposed of, with no further action for them, subject to SEBI's right to revive the case if a representation proves untrue or an undertaking is breached.

The record does not show the number of shares Spank traded, the sale details, or any criminal or civil follow-up. The related settlement of Mr Jaipuria is recorded separately in this library.

This library tags the matter as insider 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2022-07-25 SEBI settlement 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.