SEBI v. Shailendra Mehta, Shruti Vora and Varun Khandelwal (WhatsApp circulation of HDFC Bank results, 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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On 10 November 2022 a SEBI executive director disposed of a show cause notice against three people accused of circulating HDFC Bank's June 2017 quarterly figures on WhatsApp before they were announced. The charges were found not established, but the order sends the noticees' professional conduct to other bodies for review.

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

SEBI examined WhatsApp chats seized from market contacts after press reports in November 2017 that unpublished financial results of major companies were circulating in messaging groups. This order, made by an executive director on 10 November 2022 under SEBI's direction powers, concerns HDFC Bank Ltd and the period 1 to 24 July 2017. The notice named four people; one of them settled separately in February 2022, and a settlement application by Varun Khandelwal was withdrawn, so the proceeding continued against Shailendra Mehta, Shruti Vishal Vora and Mr Khandelwal.

SEBI alleged that on 21 July 2017 Mr Mehta posted a message in a WhatsApp group called Only Trades, No Bakwaas giving HDFC Bank profit-after-tax and gross non-performing asset figures for the quarter ended June 2017, that Ms Vora acknowledged receiving it and passing it on, and that the figures were very close to the results the bank announced on 24 July. It charged breach of section 12A(d) and (e) of the SEBI Act and the insider trading regulations of 2015.

The executive director weighed the orders of the Securities Appellate Tribunal in March 2021 and the Supreme Court in September 2022 in the related WhatsApp matters, together with the submissions, and held the insider trading charges against all three not established. The notice was disposed of without any direction.

The order nevertheless directs SEBI to write to three bond and money-market bodies about Mr Mehta's conduct under their codes, to examine Ms Vora and her employer under the stockbroker code of conduct, and to examine Mr Khandelwal and his portfolio-management firm under the portfolio managers' regulations.

The record does not show what follow-up SEBI or those bodies took, whether anyone traded on the message, or the identity of the original source of the figures.

This library tags the matter as insider trading (alleged communication of unpublished price sensitive information). 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. 2022-11-10 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.