SEBI v. Aqua Proof Wall Plast Private Limited and others (front running of a big seller in KPIT Technologies, 2025)

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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A SEBI adjudicating officer found that a brokerage-linked front entity, whose liabilities passed to Aqua Proof Wall Plast on merger, traded ahead of a large foreign seller of KPIT Technologies shares in July 2017 for a gain of about Rs 19.5 lakh. Penalties of Rs 40 lakh and Rs 5 lakh were imposed; proceedings against a third noticee ended on her death.

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

4.5m 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

On 10 July 2025 a SEBI adjudicating officer issued an order concerning front running of a large sale of KPIT Technologies Limited shares on 26 July 2017. The noticees were Aqua Proof Wall Plast Private Limited, which absorbed the original trader, Mehrangarh Financial Advisors, on its merger in January 2018, and Mehrangarh's two directors and shareholders, Naresh Chandra Bohra and his mother Shakuntla Bohra.

SEBI alleged that the big client was a seller linked to a Mauritius-based fund, whose large trades were executed through the broker IIFL in a coordinated set of bulk deals with four big buyers of the broker Anand Rathi. It alleged that Mehrangarh, trading through Anand Rathi, was a front entity of that broker and its group: its bank and trading account details carried the names and emails of broker staff, nearly all its funds moved with the group, and it traded ahead of the seller's orders that day. A senior Anand Rathi executive who was also a director of Aqua Proof was said to have known of the orders. The charges were section 12A(a), (b) and (c) of the SEBI Act and Regulations 3 and 4(1) of the PFUTP Regulations.

The officer found that the front running was established, held Aqua Proof liable for the violations it inherited through the merger, and found an unlawful gain of Rs 19,52,780.25. He noted that Mr Bohra had said the firm was set up and run on the instructions of the broker's group, and took the delay in issuing the notice into account. Mrs Bohra had died on 26 April 2024, and the proceedings against her were abated.

Under section 15HA the order imposed a penalty of Rs 40,00,000 on Aqua Proof and Rs 5,00,000 on Mr Bohra, Rs 45 lakh in total, and no market bar or disgorgement. A separate settlement order of May 2025 dealt with Anand Rathi's own supervisory failings in the same matter.

The record does not show whether the noticees appealed or paid, what the seller lost, or whether any senior broker staff faced action in this order. The order is a civil penalty, not a criminal conviction.

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. 2025-07-10 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
• 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.