SEBI v. Rohit Mankotia and Shila Devi (Sapphire Intrex front running, 2024)

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 26 March 2024 a SEBI chief general manager found that an employee on deputation to Sapphire Intrex Ltd, a promoter of Radico Khaitan, and his mother had front run Sapphire's trades. The order barred both for three years, ordered Rs 38.79 lakh of disgorgement and imposed a Rs 77.57 lakh penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

—

Penalty as published

7.8m 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

The final order of 26 March 2024 was issued by a chief general manager of the Securities and Exchange Board of India against two noticees: Rohit Mankotia and his mother Shila Devi. The trades front run were those of Sapphire Intrex Limited, which SEBI called the big client and which is a promoter of Radico Khaitan Limited, holding about 34 percent of its equity.

SEBI's investigation covered July 2021 to June 2022. Its notice alleged that Ms Devi, who lived in Himachal Pradesh, had an online trading account and a bank account of which her son was nominee, and that Mr Mankotia, an employee of a distillery group on deputation to Sapphire, learned of Sapphire's pending orders and placed trades in his mother's account ahead of them, selling or buying before the big client's orders moved the price and reversing afterwards.

The order rejected the noticees' complaints about the data they were given and their arguments that the trades were routine. It found that a pattern of selling before and buying after the big client's sell orders, across many scrips, was established as front running in breach of the fraud and unfair trade practice rules. It also rejected a request to count only trades that matched the big client's own orders.

It computed an illegal gain of Rs 38,78,616, which the two must disgorge jointly and severally, and restrained both from the securities market for three years. It set a penalty at twice the gain, Rs 77,57,232 under section 15HA, payable jointly and severally.

The record does not show whether the order was appealed or the sums recovered. It describes no criminal case and does not say how Mr Mankotia obtained the information beyond his role at Sapphire.

This library tags the matter as front running. 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2024-03-26 SEBI final 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.