Sun Pharma slides 4% on report of Sebi ordering forensic audit

The audit has been ordered based on allegations of corporate governance and tax-related offences and securities market-related violations by the company

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries dipped 5 per cent to Rs 416.85 apiece in Wednesday's trade on the BSE after reports suggested that Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has ordered a forensic audit against the company to look into allegations of financial irregularities and lapses in corporate governance standards.

The audit has been ordered based on allegations made by a whistleblower in a 150-page complaint to Sebi, accusing Sun Pharma of committing corporate governance and tax-related offences and securities market-related violations.

Specifically, the whistleblower complained of a fund diversion of Rs 42,000 crore and of personal profits being made to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore. The letter is also believed to allege that the company's key distributor and subsidiary, Aditya Medisales (AML) had thousands of crores of rupees worth of transactions with a real estate firm that is controlled by a director on the Sun Pharma board. Earlier, the market regulator had sought detailed answers from the company on the two queries.

"SEBI has ordered a forensic audit to confirm the findings of its initial inquiry," Moneycontrol quoted a senior SEBI official in its report.

At 9:40 AM, the stock was trading 4.05 per cent lower at Rs 421.65 and was the worst performer on Sensex and Nifty. In comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex was down 5 points, or 0.02 per cent. The counter witnessed huge trading volumes with a combined 4.7 million shares changing hands on the NSE and BSE, till the time of writing this report. Shares of Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company were also trading with over 3 per cent cut at Rs 152.25.