Sebi imposes Rs 25 lakh fine on Upturn Securities, director of Sandplast

Markets regulator Sebi on Wednesday levied a penalty of Rs 25 lakh on Upturn Securities Pvt Ltd and a director of Sandplast (India) Ltd for manipulating price of the company's scrip.

The order follows an investigation conducted by Sebi during June 2009 and December 2009 to ascertain irregularity in trading of the Sandplast shares.

The firm was declared a sick company by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction in November 2002 but was relisted on the BSE pursuant to the approval of rehabilitation scheme in June 2009.

Following the relisting of shares of Sandplast, the regulator noted continuous rise and subsequent fall in price of the company's scrip in June 2009.

"Therefore, an investigation was conducted by Sebi with a focus on the possibility of price manipulation, synchronized trades and creation of artificial volumes by any person," the regulator said.

During the investigation, it was found that a director of the company, Suresh Pukhraj Jain and Upturn "together manipulated the scrip of Sandplast by executing matched trades and synchronised trades with each other and by establishing higher price of the scrip by way of first trade of the day with each other only to influence the scrip of Sandplast to ultimately offload its shares to retail investors".

By doing so, the director and Upturn have violated provisions of Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices norms.

Accordingly, the regulator imposed a jointly and severally payable penalty of Rs 25 lakh.