SEBI v. Amrut Securities Ltd and others (Sarang Chemicals disgorgement, 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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A SEBI whole-time member ordered 13 noticees on 12 October 2022 to give up Rs 1.61 crore in gains, plus 12 percent interest, from selling Sarang Chemicals shares after a group of connected entities lifted the price. The order was issued afresh after the Securities Appellate Tribunal set aside SEBI's earlier order.

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

The matter concerns trading in Sarang Chemicals Ltd, listed on BSE, between January and June 2011. SEBI's earlier orders against the 13 noticees, a whole-time member's order of December 2018 and an adjudication order of January 2020, were set aside on 12 August 2021 by the Securities Appellate Tribunal, which sent the matter back for a fresh decision with a hearing, observing that mere connection between traders is not enough to treat them as a group. This order of 12 October 2022 is that fresh decision, and it is limited to disgorgement; it does not impose a market ban or a monetary penalty, and separate penalty proceedings against the wider group were still pending.

SEBI alleged that about 21 entities, trading through a small set of brokers, traded roughly eight crore shares among themselves. On one day the volume rose about 30 times because of a sale of 6 lakh shares between two group members, 94 percent of that day's market volume. Eleven group entities were said to account for 87 percent of volume over the first period by trading among themselves, while the price rose from Rs 0.31 to Rs 0.90. The 13 noticees then sold their shares into the higher price when other investors were attracted.

The whole-time member found the connections among the entities undisputed and the circumstantial evidence sufficient, and held that the noticees came together to push up volume and price and then sold at the higher level. The gain was computed as the difference between each noticee's average sale price and the price on the first day of the period, since the noticees did not document the purchase prices they claimed. The total was Rs 1,60,76,904.

The directions require the 13 noticees to pay their respective gains with simple interest at 12 percent a year from each transaction date, freeze their bank and demat accounts and assets until payment, and, if they do not pay, restrain them from the securities market until the liability is met.

The record does not show whether the order was appealed again, whether payment was made, or what penalty the pending adjudication produced.

This library tags the matter as price manipulation through connected-account 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2022-10-12 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

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.