SEBI v. Mukesh Parekh and others (front running, settlement, Reliance Securities dealers matter, 2023)

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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A SEBI whole-time member lifted the market restraints on Mukesh and Archana Parekh in January 2023, after they settled allegations of front running the trades of a large fund client. The settlement required about Rs 87.3 lakh plus Rs 3.6 lakh of disgorged gains with interest, with no admission or finding of guilt.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

8.7m 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

This order closes one strand of SEBI's inquiry into front running linked to dealers at Reliance Securities Ltd and connected entities. The noticees are Mukesh Parekh and Archana Mukesh Parekh. SEBI began from surveillance alerts raised in December 2019 and January 2020 about trading ahead of orders of a Tata alternative investment fund scheme, referred to in the order as the Big Client.

An ex parte interim order in August 2020 restrained the two from the securities market and directed them to place Rs 66 lakh of suspected proceeds into escrow. A confirmatory order in June 2021 upheld those directions and recalculated the proceeds from Ms Parekh's account at Rs 61,73,519, releasing the difference. A show cause notice in May 2022 alleged violations of section 12A of the SEBI Act and the fraud-on-the-market regulations, said the trades came through an account of Labdhi Enterprises because of a nexus among several connected people, and put the unlawful gain at Rs 68,88,269.

Instead of contesting the notice, the noticees applied to settle under SEBI's settlement regulations. A settlement order of 26 December 2022 accepted payment of Rs 87,30,881 as the settlement amount plus Rs 3,61,434 for remaining gains and interest at 12 per cent, on a joint and several basis. The present order of 23 January 2023 records that both sums were paid, revokes the interim and confirmatory restraints with immediate effect, disposes of the notice for these two noticees, and moves Rs 69,61,434 plus accrued interest from escrow to the Investor Protection and Education Fund.

The record is a settlement outcome, so the order makes no finding that front running occurred; the allegations stand as allegations. It says the revocation does not prevent SEBI from acting against the noticees on other matters. It does not set out the trade-by-trade facts, does not show what happened to the other people named in the notice, and describes no criminal case. The penalty figure shown for this record is the settlement amount; the disgorgement is stated in the narrative only.

This library tags the matter as front running. 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2023-01-23 SEBI order revoking restraints after settlement

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.