SEBI v. Bimla Devi Jindal and others (misstated results, Vikas Proppant and Granite, 2023)

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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In February 2023 a SEBI adjudicating officer penalised four current and former officers of Vikas Proppant and Granite Ltd a combined Rs 70 lakh for publishing results that investors could not rely on. The order found revenue and profit reported with no inventory behind them, nearly all from related parties, over four financial years.

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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Penalty as published

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

Vikas Proppant and Granite Ltd (VPGL) is listed on the BSE and traded in a permitted category on the NSE. SEBI began looking at it after an anonymous complaint in June 2021 alleging fake fixed assets, fake debtors and creditors, and fake sales, and an examination by the NSE that flagged revenue without inventory or material costs, related-party balances that did not match, and a string of resignations by auditors and directors. SEBI's investigation covered financial years 2017-18 to 2020-21.

The four noticees were Bimla Devi Jindal, chairman and managing director, Kamini Jindal, a director, Lokesh Kumar Garg, the chief financial officer, and Praveen Bishnoi, the compliance officer. SEBI alleged that VPGL reported sales of about Rs 52.77 crore and a profit of Rs 44.25 crore for 2018-19, and a much smaller sales and profit figure the following year, with no inventory or material consumption and all of it with related parties, and that this occurred before the company had its environmental clearance and mining licence. It also pointed to a preferential allotment of shares against land in the promoter family's hands at a high value, and to loans and plant-and-equipment entries that it said looked like book entries.

The adjudicating officer found the charges established under section 12A of the SEBI Act and the fraud-on-the-market regulations, with listing-rule breaches as well. He said the misstatements continued year after year and were not technical, that the two directors and the two senior officers all took part, and that the CFO and compliance officer benefited through shares received by preferential allotment and employee share options. He stated that the extent of investor loss could not be computed.

Penalties under sections 15HA and 15HB were Rs 25 lakh each for Ms Bimla Devi Jindal and Ms Kamini Jindal and Rs 10 lakh each for Mr Garg and Mr Bishnoi, Rs 70 lakh in total, payable within 45 days. The order imposed no market bar and no disgorgement.

The record does not show appeals, payment, or whether the company itself was proceeded against, as it is not a noticee here. It describes no criminal case.

This library tags the matter as misleading issuer disclosure. 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.

• Misleading issuer disclosure — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2023-02-28 SEBI adjudication 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.