SEBI v. Surabhi Shah and Saumil Shah (insider trading, Magma Fincorp, 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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In April 2023 SEBI disposed of insider-trading proceedings against two applicants over trading in Magma Fincorp ahead of the February 2021 Poonawalla Group investment announcement. The applicants paid Rs 2,10,63,490 and agreed to disgorge impounded gains, neither admitting nor denying the findings.

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

21.1m 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

SEBI's whole-time member, Ashwani Bhatia, issued this settlement order on 26 April 2023. The applicants are Surabhi Shah and Saumil Shah, and the issuer is Magma Fincorp Ltd, later renamed Poonawalla Fincorp Ltd, whose shares trade on NSE and BSE.

SEBI alleged that the applicants were insiders who knew non-public information about the Poonawalla Group's interest in investing in Magma, and that they traded on it before the company announced on 10 February 2021 that a Poonawalla entity would take control and that Rs 3,456 crore of fresh capital would be raised by preferential allotment. The alleged violation was of Regulation 4(1) of the PIT Regulations and section 12A(d) and (e) of the SEBI Act. SEBI had earlier passed an ex parte interim order in September 2021 restraining the applicants from dealing in securities and impounding bank balances, and confirmed it with modifications in March 2022.

The investigation covered 11 January to 10 February 2021. It put the alleged gain of Surabhi Shah at Rs 1,76,03,579.45, and said Saumil Shah made no gain of his own because he was alleged to have traded in her account. A show cause notice followed in September 2022, and both applicants applied to settle under the 2018 Settlement Regulations.

After an internal committee meeting and a recommendation from the High Powered Advisory Committee, the terms were Rs 39,00,000 from Saumil Shah and Rs 1,71,63,490 from Surabhi Shah, a total of Rs 2,10,63,490, plus disgorgement of the already impounded Rs 1,76,03,579.45 on a joint and several basis. The order records that the sums were paid and disposes of the show cause notice, on terms that leave SEBI free to act again if representations prove untrue or undertakings are breached.

This is a settlement, not a finding. The applicants settled without admitting or denying the findings of fact or conclusions of law, so the record contains no adjudicated determination of guilt. The record does not show any restraint beyond the settlement terms, any criminal case or any later appeal, and the applicants' actual trading profits beyond the alleged figure are not stated.

This library tags the matter as insider 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 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. 2023-04-26 SEBI settlement 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
• 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.