SEBI v. Ficus Securities Pvt. Ltd. and others (broker misuse of client funds and securities, 2022)
Judgment entered
Checked against the primary document on October 9, 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.
In August 2022 a SEBI whole time member barred an NSE stock broker, its commodities affiliate and their controlling director for seven years after finding that client money and securities had been misused and not returned. Four nominal directors were let go with a caution because they had already been restrained for over four years.
The record
| Agency | SEBI (India) |
|---|---|
| Date filed | 2022-08-25 |
| Date resolved | 2022-08-25 |
| Court | SEBI whole time member |
| Status | judgment |
| Asset class | equities, commodities |
| Venue | NSE, NCDEX |
| Criminal parallel | No |
| Bars imposed | Ficus Securities, Ficus Commodities and Vinod Kumar Bansal restrained from the securities market for 7 years, Mr Bansal barred for 7 years from directorships or association with listed or intermediary companies, Joint and several refund of client money with 15% annual interest and return of client securities, Restraints on four other directors lifted after more than four years served |
| Defendants | Ficus Securities Pvt. Ltd. ; Ficus Commodities Pvt. Ltd. ; Vinod Kumar Bansal ; Surender Singh ; Neena Bansal ; Poonam Rajbhar ; Tripta Kapoor ; Shabnam John |
| Also named elsewhere | Ficus Securities Pvt. Ltd. |
| Techniques |
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
- —
What is alleged to have happened
A SEBI whole time member decided this matter on 25 August 2022 as a final order under sections 11, 11(4) and 11B of the SEBI Act. The noticees were the NSE broker Ficus Securities Pvt. Ltd., its affiliate Ficus Commodities Pvt. Ltd. (a commodity-exchange member), the controlling figure Vinod Kumar Bansal and five other directors or former directors.
The case began with an NSE inspection and a SEBI inspection covering April 2015 to January 2018. SEBI's findings included client funds of about Rs 34.71 crore and client securities of about Rs 29.50 crore not being available, funds not segregated from the broker's own, client accounts unsettled, client securities pledged, transfers to related parties, and 327 pending investor complaints. An interim order of March 2018 restrained the noticees from the market, the exchanges declared the two firms defaulters, and show cause notices followed in 2021. The charges rested on SEBI circulars, the stock broker regulations and Regulations 3(a) to (d) of the PFUTP Regulations.
The order finds that Mr Bansal ran both businesses single-handedly and took the decisions that led to serious contraventions, including of the PFUTP Regulations, and that the two firms misused client money and securities. The other directors said they were employees who were made directors, and two of them said they never paid for their shares; the order accepts that they were not running the firms but holds that name-lending directors on a broker's board are still responsible for omissions.
The directions restrain Ficus Securities, Ficus Commodities and Mr Bansal from the securities market for seven years, and bar Mr Bansal from directorships or association with listed companies or registered intermediaries for seven years. The first two and Mr Bansal must jointly and severally repay client money with 15 per cent annual interest and return client securities or their value under exchange supervision, and their assets are frozen until then. The exchanges' defaulters' committees are to run escrow accounts. For the remaining individuals the earlier restraint is lifted, because more than four years of debarment already served is held proportionate; Mr Surender Singh, who held a directorship only briefly, was given the benefit of the doubt. No monetary penalty is imposed.
The record does not show how much of the client money was in the end recovered, whether this order was appealed, or any criminal case. The conduct is broker fraud on clients rather than price manipulation.
No library technique fits, so the technique list is empty.
This library tags the matter as broker misappropriation of client assets, with no more specific library technique. 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.
Timeline
- 2022-08-25 SEBI final order by whole time member
Primary documents
Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.