New Delhi, 22 December
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has exposed a ‘front running’ scheme involving PNB Metlife India Insurance Company’s equity dealer Sachin Bakul Dagli and eight other entities. These people had earned an illegal profit of Rs 21.16 crore through this scheme. From ‘front running’ is to trade in the stock market based on advance information and earn profits. Till that time this information is not provided to the customers. Front running by these units continued for more than three years. Sebi, through an interim order on Friday, barred Sachin Bakul Dagli and eight other entities from operating in the securities market and confiscated the illegal profits earned by them. Sebi had probed suspected ‘front running’ by some entities in the transactions of large clients PNB Metlife India Insurance Company Limited.
The purpose of the investigation was to find out whether the suspected entities were front-running large client transactions in connivance with dealers and/or fund managers, among others. Thus, these people had violated SEBI’s PFUTP (Prevention of Fraud and Unfair Trade Practices) rules and the provisions of the SEBI Act. The examination period was from 1st January to 19th July 2024. In its investigation, SEBI observed that Sachin Dagli was entrusted with the execution of most of the decisions related to transactions in PNB Metlife. The regulator found that Sachin Bakul Dagli (equity dealer, PNB Metlife) and his brother Tejas Dagli (equity traders, Investec) received intelligence and non-public information about upcoming orders of institutional clients of PNB Metlife and Investec. He used this information to make transactions and shared it with Sandeep Shambharkar, who was also involved in front learning transactions through the accounts of Dhanmata Realty Private Limited (DRPL), Worthy Distributors Private Limited (WDPL) and Pragnesh Sanghvi. brought
Directors of DRPL and WDPL, including Kirti Kumar Shah, Kavita Saha and Jignesh Nikulbhai Dabhi, also took advantage of the scheme. -News-Patiala