Sebi slaps penalty on Bajaj Finance executive

Securities market watchdog Sebi today slapped fine on an executive of non-banking lender Bajaj Finance for violating 'Prohibition of Insider Trading (PIT)' regulations.
According to Sebi, Bajaj Finance's business head-sales finance Amit Raghuvanshi failed to make disclosures about his shareholding to the lender and the relevant bourses, after selling over Rs 15 lakh worth shares of the company last year.
Consequently in an order, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has imposed "a penalty of Rs 50,000 on the noticee viz Amit Raghuvanshi".
Under PIT rules, an officer of a listed company has to make disclosures to that company and the stock exchanges if the changes in their shareholding exceeds Rs 5 lakh in value or 25,000 shares or 1 per cent of the total shareholding.

Previously, the capital market watchdog has also imposed penalties for violation of PIT norms on executives of Wipro, ITC Ltd and Mahindra & Mahindra, among others.
Sebi has begun focusing on imposing penalties on the company executives for their offences, rather than taking penal action action against the entire company.
The case relates to capital market regulator's probe into the alleged irregularity in the scrip of Bajaj Finance.
Sebi had observed that Raghuvanshi had sold 1,000 shares of Bajaj Finance on December 31, 2013 for a value of Rs 15,63,263 which were acquired by him on December 28, 2013 by way of exercising stock options of the company.