SEBI v. Ankit Laxmipatraj Singhvi (Abans Enterprises, 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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On 8 November 2023 a SEBI adjudicating officer penalised Ankit Laxmipatraj Singhvi Rs 5,00,000 for lifting the price of Abans Enterprises shares between 2016 and 2020 with small buy orders placed above the best available sell price. His settlement application had been rejected in September 2023.

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

500k 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

A SEBI adjudicating officer issued this order on 8 November 2023 against one noticee, Ankit Laxmipatraj Singhvi, in the matter of Abans Enterprises Limited. SEBI reviewed trading in the scrip from 4 March 2016 to 28 February 2020.

SEBI alleged that he breached section 12A of the SEBI Act and Regulations 3 and 4 of the PFUTP Regulations. Mr Singhvi applied to settle the case in July 2023, but the application was rejected in September 2023, after which the adjudication resumed, with inspection of documents, a reply on 17 October and a hearing on 30 October.

The order finds that he contributed upward price movement of Rs 58.80 through 21 trades in one phase and Rs 1,127.95 through 123 trades in another, as well as Rs 37.90 through eight trades that set new highs and Rs 84.55 through twelve opening trades. His buy orders were for only 1 to 10 shares each and were priced above sell orders already available in the market. Citing a Securities Appellate Tribunal decision on similar small-lot buying, the officer held the pattern fraudulent and manipulative.

Under section 15HA of the SEBI Act the officer imposed the statutory minimum penalty of Rs 5,00,000, noting that no gain, investor loss or earlier SEBI action against him was on record.

The record does not show whether he appealed. It does not name other participants in the trades, and mentions no criminal case.

This library tags the matter as price manipulation. 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2023-11-08 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.