Sebi slaps Rs 1.52 cr fine on Maharashtra Polybutenes official

For repeatedly making wrongful and misleading disclosures, Sebi has imposed a penalty of Rs 1.52 crore on Maharashtra Polybutenes Ltd's promoter and managing director Brijmohan Rathi.
A probe by the capital market regulator revealed that there was gross mismatch between the actual shareholding of the company's promoters and that made in the quarterly disclosures to the exchange.
Imposing a penalty of Rs 1.52 crore on Rathi, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said the general public were mislead with repeated wrong disclosures.
The disclosures made to BSE were factually incorrect and mislead the investors by indicating that the promoter was holding on large quantity of shares whereas in reality his shareholding as evidenced by the demat statements has come down substantially, it noted.

According to the watchdog, the general public were made to believe through repeated wrong disclosure to BSE that there was no change in the shareholding of the promoters whereas the shareholding of promoter group has come down significantly.
"The default by the noticee is repetitive in nature as the noticee has made wrongful and misleading disclosures for himself and other promoter group entities to the BSE on more than one occasion ie continuously for four quarters.

"Also, the noticee has failed to make disclosures under Regulation 13(4) read with regulation 13(5) of PIT (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 1992 in twelve instances," the order, dated September 30, said.

With regard to pledged shares, it was found that there was mismatch in the disclosures.
"The difference arose because shares which were already transferred by the promoters was shown to BSE in the disclosures as if they are still held by promoter group," the order said.