Order against Magadh Stock Exchange Association (MSEA) & Others

Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has passed an ex-parte order dated August 19, 2005 under section 12A of Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956 read with Section 11(4) and 11B of SEBI Act, 1992 and Section 19 of Depositories Act, 1996 in the matter of transactions in the scrip of Bhoruka Financial Services Limited (BFSL) on Magadh Stock Exchange Association (MSEA)

The directions in the aforesaid order are as follows:

a)         In order to prevent the affairs of MSEA being conducted in a manner detrimental to the interests of the investors and also to secure proper management of the stock exchange, MSEA, which has been illegally used to facilitate the trading in the scrip of BFSL in violation of Sections 13 and  19 of Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956 and also in violation of the conditions of renewal of the MSEA,   is directed not to assist , regulate or control the dealings in securities in any manner whatsoever until further directions or pending completion of final proceedings, whichever is earlier.

b)         It is prima facie found that the member of the MSEA namely Rajat Share & Stock Broker Pvt. Ltd. facilitated the above transactions illegally on the stock exchange and without following Know Your Client criteria. They are directed not to deal in securities, undertake any transactions in securities as a broker registered with SEBI.

c)                  Under Section 19 of Depositories Act, 1996  read with Section 11 (4) of SEBI Act 1992, the shares of BFSL lying with Central Depository Services (India) Ltd. (CDSL) in demat form are hereby impounded till further orders.  CDSL is also directed not to permit any transfers in the shares of BFSL till further orders.

d)                 Under Section 11 (4) (a) read with Section 19 of SEBI Act, 1992, SEBI has directed that the transactions in the scrip of BFSL (which is listed on the Bangalore Stock Exchange (BgSE) be suspended on BgSE and any other stock exchange until further orders.

e)                  The acquirer namely DLF Commercial Developers Ltd. is prohibited from dealing in the scrip of BFSL so long as the above directions are in force.

f)                    The promoters of BFSL who are the sellers in this scrip namely Shri Satyanarayan Agarwal , Shri Viveek Agrawal, Umah Agrawal, Siddhartha Agrawal, Satyanarayanan Vivek Kumar HUF, M/s Prabhu Securities Limited, M/s. Bhoruka Engineering Ind. Ltd., who  have been prima facie found  to have gained unfairly, have been directed  by SEBI under Section 11 B read with 11(4) to deposit the proceeds of these transactions in an escrow account  with a nationalised bank opened exclusively for this purpose and they are further directed to take prior approval of SEBI for dealing in this account. 

g)                  In view of the reckless and unseemly conduct on the part of the Officiating Executive Director (OED) of MSEA , Shri C M Pandey, he is suspended from acting as a OED or in any capacity in MSEA or in any other institution related with the securities market, till further orders.

The order was passed by SEBI’s Whole Time Member, Shri G. Anantharaman.

The directions in this order will come into force with immediate effect.

The full text of the order is available in the website: www.sebi.gov.in

The order was passed by SEBI in the following context:

On August 10, 2005, it came to the notice of SEBI that, the MSEA has illegally commenced trading even though it had not complied with the conditions of renewal of the exchange, which inter alia required that trading on the exchange should commence only after the setting up of the settlement guarantee fund duly approved by SEBI. SEBI immediately advised MSEA to stop trading and called for the details of trades undertaken. On examination of the trading details it was found that MSEA had illegally commenced trading since August 1, 2005 and out of the total trading volume of Rs 109.71 crore, nearly 99% of the trading volume i.e. Rs 108.87 crore was in the scrip of  BFSL. It was found that BFSL is listed only on Bangalore Stock Exchange Ltd. (BgSE) and was last traded 17 years back,  in 1988 at Rs 5/- in BgSE. This scrip which is not listed in MSEA, was admitted to trade under the permitted category by MSEA on August 1, 2005, at the request of the broker Rajat Share & Stock Broker Pvt. Ltd.. The trades amounting to 1,98,850 shares, and accounting for 98.73 % of the paid up share capital of BFSL,  were  all  executed  at  an  incredibly  high  price  of  Rs 4,490/- per share. The

above trades were executed by the promoters of BFSL of Bangalore as sellers and DLF Commercial Developers Ltd of Delhi was the acquirer. It was also noted that DLF had earlier applied to SEBI to seek exemption from making a public announcement to acquire these many shares (i.e 98.73%) of the company from the promoters at a pre negotiated price of Rs 2,400 per share. SEBI had by its order dated June 29, 2005 had exempted the acquirer from making an open offer. The trades done on MSEA at             Rs.4490 were therefore also in violation of SEBI’s Takeover order.

Thus the buyer DLF was located in Delhi, being a Delhi based company, while  the sellers (promoters of BFSL) were Bangalore based entities and the scrip of BFSL listed only on Bangalore Stock Exchange was illegally traded on MSEA in Patna, through a broker common to the buyer and sellers based in Patna.

In view of the foregoing, SEBI after gathering the trade details on August 16, 2005, examined the matter and sent out teams to MSEA, BgSE, on August 18, 2005. The details of payments were verified with the concerned bank and that of the securities with the CDSL. The matter was also confronted with the buyers in Delhi on August 19, 2005 and in view of the exigencies of circumstances as enumerated above, an ex-parte order was passed on August 19, 2005.

Mumbai

August 22, 2005