SEBI v. North End Foods Marketing Pvt Ltd and Sandeep Sabharwal (Mentha oil futures, settlement, 2023)

Settled

✓ 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.

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In March 2023 SEBI settled its case against North End Foods Marketing and its managing director Sandeep Sabharwal, accused of hiding behind connected entities to hold most of the deliverable Mentha oil stock at MCX. Each paid Rs 45.5 lakh, Rs 91 lakh in all, without admitting or denying the allegations.

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

9.1m 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 settlement order of 6 March 2023 was made by SEBI adjudicating officer Vijayant Kumar Verma under the SEBI (Settlement Proceedings) Regulations, 2018. The applicants are North End Foods Marketing Pvt Ltd and its managing director Sandeep Sabharwal. The market concerned is Mentha oil futures and deliverable stock at the Multi Commodity Exchange of India.

MCX told SEBI that a group of entities, clubbed together because they received money from North End, held more than 75 percent of the exchange's deliverable Mentha oil stock. SEBI's show cause notice of 23 September 2022 alleged that the group acquired the oil both through futures contracts and through off-market transfers from a second group of entities, and that North End funded both groups directly or through proxy accounts. SEBI alleged that this was a scheme to acquire a dominant, hidden beneficial position, a cornering of the stock, in breach of the position limit circulars, section 12A of the SEBI Act and PFUTP Regulations 3 and 4. Mr Sabharwal was charged as the managing director.

The applicants applied to settle in December 2022. After SEBI's internal committee and its high powered advisory committee considered the terms, the whole time members approved them on 1 February 2023. Each applicant paid Rs 45,50,000 on 8 February 2023, Rs 91 lakh in total, and the adjudication proceedings were disposed of.

The order records no admission or denial of the allegations, and it leaves SEBI free to restore the proceedings if the applicants' statements prove untrue or they breach their undertakings.

The record does not show the size of the position, any price effect, or any gain.

This library tags the matter as cornering, on the strength of the allegations. No finding was made. 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2023-03-06 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
• SEBI order (PDF)

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.