SEBI v. Shivprasad Pattiya and Alkesh Narware (WhatsApp algo-trading scheme, illiquid stock options, 2025)

Judgment entered

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 9, 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-94722-market-abuse-2025) by email

In June 2025 a SEBI quasi-judicial authority ordered Shivprasad Pattiya and Alkesh Narware to disgorge Rs 4.83 crore, barred them from the market for three years and fined each Rs 25 lakh. SEBI found that they used investors' trading accounts, obtained through promises of algorithmic trading profits, to trade illiquid stock options at off-market prices against accounts they controlled.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

—

Penalty as published

5m 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

This final order of 20 June 2025 concerns Shivprasad Pattiya and Alkesh Narware, whom SEBI calls the operator group. It began with an exchange alert about out-of-the-money stock options traded at prices far from fair value without movement in the underlying shares, and with investor complaints to the NSE that they had shared account credentials with members of WhatsApp groups promising profits from algorithmic trading and then suffered losses in the lakhs.

The show cause notice of February 2025, covering January 2021 to February 2022, alleged a scheme with two parts. A separate caller group, using false names, contacted investors by WhatsApp and phone and persuaded them to hand over account credentials. The operators then controlled those accounts and traded illiquid options in them against a network of front accounts, whose holders did not understand the trades and whose margin funding traced back to the operators, moving money from the investors to the fronts.

The order finds the scheme established and the noticees responsible. It quantifies their unfair advantage at Rs 4,83,11,996 and treats that amount as the loss to the group of investors. The directions require them to disgorge that sum jointly and severally with simple interest at 12 per cent a year from 1 February 2022, restrain them from the securities market for three years and freeze the sale of their assets except to pay. Each is fined Rs 25 lakh under section 15HA, Rs 50 lakh in all.

The record does not show the identity of the callers, whether any money was recovered, whether the order was appealed, or any criminal complaint.

This library tags the matter as price manipulation, since trades were struck at artificial prices in illiquid contracts. 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. 2025-06-20 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 page
• 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.