SEBI v. Nishil Surendra Marfatia and others (Alankit Ltd, 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 22 May 2024 a SEBI adjudicating officer found that Nishil Surendra Marfatia, managing director of a stockbroker, drove up the price of Alankit Ltd shares on one day in March 2017 and that his firm let its platform be used. Penalties came to Rs 8 lakh, and the charges against five other noticees were not established.

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

800k 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 adjudication order of 22 May 2024 concerns seven noticees in the matter of trading in Alankit Limited shares during March 2017: Nishil Surendra Marfatia and his firm, Marfatia Stock Broking Private Limited, of which he is managing director; four counterparties, Ajay Natavarlal Commodities, Suyog Securities, Jinalben Vora and Pranav Vora; and their common broker, ANS Pvt. Ltd.

SEBI alleged that on 20 March 2017 the four counterparties bought about 50 lakh shares almost entirely from Mr Marfatia and sold them back the same day at a profit of about Rs 93 lakh in total, while he booked a loss, in what it called a structured pattern. It also pointed to loans between Mr Marfatia and two of the counterparties and to reversal trades making up 14.2 percent of volume.

The adjudicating officer was not persuaded for the counterparties and their broker, finding no conclusive evidence of manipulation in their trades. But for Mr Marfatia the order found that he sold at lower prices while placing buy orders above the last traded price, was the single largest contributor to the price rise, and gave no credible reason; it held the fraud and unfair trade practice charges established. It found his broking firm facilitated this and breached the stock brokers' code of conduct.

The penalty was Rs 6 lakh under section 15HA, payable by Mr Marfatia and the firm jointly and severally, plus Rs 2 lakh on the firm under section 15HB, Rs 8 lakh in all. The order noted that there was one earlier penalty order against him and two against the firm, and that an exchange committee had earlier fined the firm Rs 1 lakh.

The record does not show whether anyone appealed or paid, and it describes no criminal case. The order does not quantify investor loss.

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. 2024-05-22 SEBI adjudication 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.