SEBI v. Poonam Jashnani and others (United Spirits options, final order, 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; 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.

Report an error in this record (sebi-75930-insider-trading-2023) by email

On 25 August 2023 a SEBI whole-time member disposed of the proceedings against three members of the Jashnani family over options trading before Diageo's 2014 open offer for United Spirits, with no directions. He found a very high probability that they had inside information but no cogent proof of how it reached them.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

—

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

A SEBI whole-time member issued this final order on 25 August 2023 under SEBI's direction powers. It concerns Poonam, Varun and Haresh Jashnani and their trading in United Spirits Limited stock options between January and April 2014. A parallel adjudicating officer order of the same date addressed penalties in the same facts.

On 15 April 2014 Relay B.V. and Diageo announced an open offer for up to 26 percent of United Spirits at Rs 3,030 a share, and the share closed 11.57 percent higher that day. A show cause notice of 29 March 2017 alleged that the offer was unpublished price sensitive information from March 2014, that Nishat Gupte, a Diageo executive on the deal and the noticees' relative by marriage, had it, and that the noticees traded options on it and sent gains back to his family.

The order says the noticees' trading pattern and market moves gave a probability of just 0.0008 percent that their large positions in March and April 2014 coincided with favourable moves by chance, pointing strongly to access to the information. But the investigation record referred to no communication between Mr Gupte and the noticees, and a family trip to London cited by them was booked and taken after the relevant period, so it did not meet the standard of cogent evidence set by the Supreme Court in Balram Garg v SEBI.

On that ground the member held the noticees could not be treated as insiders and had not violated the PIT Regulations or section 12A of the SEBI Act. Because the trades were not found unlawful, no gains were computed, and the notice was disposed of without any directions or penalty.

The record does not show whether SEBI appealed, nor does it show any criminal case. It leaves open the question of Mr Gupte's own position, as he is not a noticee in this order.

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. 2023-08-25 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

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.