SEBI v. Usha Devi and others (price and volume manipulation of DU Digital 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. 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-98774-matched-orders-2025) by email

In December 2025 SEBI found that a group of 25 connected traders lifted the price and volume of DU Digital Technologies on the NSE SME platform through synchronised and circular trades. It ordered disgorgement of about Rs 98.8 lakh with interest, penalties totalling Rs 1.85 crore and market restraints of 1 to 2.5 years.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

—

Penalty as published

18.5m 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

A SEBI quasi-judicial authority, N. Murugan, issued this 138-page order on 31 December 2025. It concerns 27 noticees, 26 of them individuals or entities alleged to have traded as a connected group and one, Sun Flower Broking Private Limited, a broker. The record names twelve of them, and fifteen more are covered.

SEBI looked at DU Digital Technologies, listed on the NSE SME platform in August 2021 at Rs 12, whose price rose about fourteen-fold by March 2023 and peaked at Rs 296.05 in November 2022. It alleged that the 26 were linked by common mobile numbers, device identifiers, IP addresses and fund flows, and that through synchronised trades, circular trades, orders above the last traded price and first trades among themselves they built both price and volume. It also alleged that some noticees misled investigators or ignored summons, and that the broker opened one account without in-person verification.

The order finds that the connected traders took part in the scheme and violated section 12A of the SEBI Act and the PFUTP Regulations, and it also penalises noticees under the provisions on misleading or not cooperating with investigators.

It directs 20 noticees (21 entries, one noticee being charged twice) to disgorge unlawful gains totalling Rs 98,78,054.45 with interest at 12 percent a year from 31 March 2023, restrains 25 noticees from the securities market for between one year and thirty months, and imposes monetary penalties on 25 noticees from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 20 lakh each, Rs 1,85,00,000 in total. Pranav Kamleshkumar Trivedi received the longest restraint (thirty months) and the largest penalty (Rs 20 lakh).

The operative tables list no penalty or restraint for noticee number 12, who the order says had died, or for the broker, so the record does not show how those two were treated. It does not show appeals, payment, or investor losses.

This library tags the matter as price manipulation through synchronised and circular trading. 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 3 techniques 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.
• Matched orders — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.
• Wash trading — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2025-12-31 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

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.