Sebi summons Reena Bansal for personal hearing on Mar 26

Sebi summons Reena Bansal for personal hearing on Mar 26

Sebi today summoned Reena Bansal, wife of a former sub-broker, for a personal appearance with respect to her alleged involvement in defrauding investors through illicit dealings in shares of many bluechip firms.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has summoned Bansal to appear for a personal hearing at the market regulator's headquarters in Mumbai on March 26.

The Sebi notice today has been issued in relation to an interim order passed by Sebi against Bansal in April 2011 wherein the market regulator had sought reply from her on the case within a period of 15 days.

Sebi had found that Bansal had acted as an unregistered sub-broker and dealt in shares of various firms such as State Bank of India, Reliance Power, Unitech, Ranbaxy, Tata Steel, United Breweries, Infosys Technologies, for her clients.

"You may note that this opportunity is given to you to adduce all evidences and clarifications in support of your contentions, if any, for charges levelled against you in the order," Sebi said in the notice to Bansal.

"If you do not appear before WTM (Sebi's Whole Time Member) on the said date of hearing, it will presumed that you have nothing further to state and Sebi may proceed further in this matter and pass order as it deems fit based on material available on records," it added.

The market regulator had come across media reports on March 30, 2011 that Rajeev Bansal, a sub-broker affiliated to ICICI Securities and his wife Reena Bansal had allegedly defrauded some investors.

From the analysis of certain information, Sebi had formed a prima facie view that Reena Bansal had dealt in the shares on behalf of clients without obtaining registration from the market regulator and thus acted as an unregistered sub-broker.

Accordingly, pending investigation, Sebi had barred Bansal from the securities market in April 2011.

The regulator had also asked Bansal to treat the interim order as a show cause notice and reply to the same within 15 days.