SEBI v. Hemant Ghai (CNBC Awaaz stock recommendations, settlement, 2025)

Settled

✓ 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.

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In December 2025 SEBI settled with Hemant Ghai, co-host of the CNBC Awaaz show Stock 20-20, over allegations that he passed on advance details of the show's stock recommendations to others who traded ahead of them. He neither admitted nor denied the allegations and paid Rs 1.456 crore.

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

14.6m 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 settlement order of 9 December 2025 concerns Hemant Ghai, who co-hosted the show Stock 20-20 on the Hindi business channel CNBC Awaaz. SEBI saw a high correlation between the recommendations made on the show between January 2018 and January 2021 and trades by certain other persons.

A show cause notice of 24 February 2025 alleged that Mr Ghai communicated non-public information about the recommendations to be made on the show to certain people, who shared it with others and traded on it to make unlawful gains. It charged breaches of section 12A of the SEBI Act and regulations 3 and 4 of the PFUTP Regulations, and sought debarment, disgorgement and a penalty under section 15HA.

While the proceedings were pending he applied to settle without admitting or denying the findings. SEBI's internal committee recommended a settlement amount of Rs 1,45,60,000, he suggested an alternative calculation that the committee did not accept, and the advisory committee recommended the same figure. The panel of whole-time members accepted this in October 2025 and he paid in late October 2025.

The order disposes of the notice against him, with SEBI keeping the right to act again if his representations prove untrue or his undertakings are breached. No debarment is stated.

The record does not show any finding on the merits, because a settlement order makes none, nor the size of the profits made by those who traded, or how the order relates to the separate Zee Business guest-expert matter.

This library tags the matter as front-running, because the allegation was trading ahead of broadcast recommendations. 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. 2025-12-09 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.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added October 8, 2026. submit a correction.