Shankar Sharma gets four-week breather

The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) today gave Shankar Sharma (pictured), vice-chairman and joint managing director of First Global Stock Broking, four weeks to appeal in the Supreme Court against an order barring him from accessing the securities market for a year. Sharma was charged with executing manipulative trades.

“Our order (dismissing Sharma’s appeal against Sebi’s ban) will not be given effect for a period of four weeks from today to enable the applicant to file an appeal in the Supreme Court,” SAT said.

Sharma had asked for time to appeal in the Supreme Court. “We accordingly direct that our order shall remain in abeyance till November 30,” SAT said.

In February this year, the market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had prohibited Sharma from buying, selling or dealing in securities and from associating with the securities market in any manner for a period of one year.

This order was stayed by SAT on March 9 till the finalisation of Sharma’s appeal.

On October 28, SAT had said, “We are satisfied that the appellant executed fictitious trade by taking opposite positions, which is not permissible. The trades were also manipulative in as much as the buy and the sell orders were placed at almost the same time.”

“In this view, no fault can be found with the impugned order. As a result, the appeal fails and the same stands dismissed,” SAT said.