Markets regulator Sebi on Tuesday banned a total of 12 entities for 4 years from the securities market for tweaking share price of Ram Minerals and Chemicals Ltd.
“These 12 entities matched the price of prevailing buy orders which were placed at a higher price than the last traded price and thus contributed to increased scrip price with each of their trades, and thereby misled the investors, Sebi said while presenting a ban on them.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) issued an examination from December 2013 to December 2014 with regards to the trading in the scrip of Ram Minerals and observed that the price rose from Rs 2.20 per share to Rs 219.55 during the investigation period.
The probe revealed that entities were in touch with each other and were acting in concert to manipulate the price of the scrip. In spite of a string of buy orders being available in the market, the entity released a very small quantity of shares in each transaction and performed not more than one transaction a day.
The intention of the entities was to mark the share price higher and not merely to enter into the sale transactions, Sebi noted.
Because of this, they violated the PFUTP (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices) norms, the regulator said.
Accordingly, All Time Buildtech Pvt Ltd, Anuradha Arora, B G Freight Shoppe India, Girraj Kumar Gupta HUF, and Ever Bright Trading Pvt Ltd were among the 12 entities that were removed from the securities market for 4 years.
