SEBI v. Doshi Chatterjee Bagri & Co. LLP and R K Bagri (Arvind Remedies auditors, 2023)

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. 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.

Report an error in this record (sebi-72779-misleading-issuer-disclosure-2023) by email

In June 2023 a SEBI whole-time member declined to find that the statutory auditors of Arvind Remedies breached the anti-fraud rules, holding the evidence too thin to show collusion, while criticising their audit as grossly negligent. The proceedings ended with a cautionary note and a referral to the accounting regulators, with no sanction.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

—

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

This final order was issued on 19 June 2023 by S. K. Mohanty, a whole-time member of SEBI. The noticees are the audit firm Doshi Chatterjee Bagri & Co. LLP and its partner R K Bagri, statutory auditors of Arvind Remedies Ltd. The order is part of SEBI's wider case on falsification of that company's financial statements, in which the company's managing director and an executive director were separately dealt with.

SEBI's inquiry began with a forensic audit report from Punjab National Bank. It found that the company showed inflated sales and non-existent purchases with connected entities, with funds routed in circles on the same day and no movement of goods, and that it prepared different versions of its financial statements for different years. SEBI alleged that the auditors, who were in the role during the relevant years, were party to or failed to detect the scheme, in breach of the PFUTP Regulations.

The whole-time member found that the evidence did not support a conclusion that the auditors acted in connivance or collusion with the company or its management. He gave them the benefit of the doubt on fraud, while saying that their conduct as statutory auditors displayed gross negligence and professional misconduct, which he treated as established. The peer review by the accountants' institute that the noticees invoked was not accepted as exoneration.

The material was held unable to withstand scrutiny for a violation of the PFUTP Regulations, so the proceedings were disposed of with a cautionary advice and no monetary penalty or market bar. A certified copy of the order was sent to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the National Financial Reporting Authority for any action they consider appropriate.

The record does not show what ICAI or NFRA did, or whether SEBI appealed the outcome. The order concerns an alleged scheme by the company; the dismissal here is about the auditors' role only.

This library tags the matter as misleading issuer disclosure; the order did not sustain the fraud allegation against these noticees. 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. 2023-06-19 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
• 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.