Sebi bars 5 for falsely picking up Pyramid Saimira shares

The five persons, who allegedly acted in collusion with the Pyramid Saimira Theater Limited (PSTL), have also been asked to surrender the money they made by obtaining employee quota shares along with an interest of 20 per cent.

Unlawful gains
These persons, Sebi order said, would be banned for seven more years from buying and selling shares if they fail to surrender the “unlawful gains” made by acquiring shares during the initial public offer of PSTL which hit the market in December 2006.  The five are Kishore S Jain, Jayantilal R Jain, Sripal J Shah, Rajesh Prakash Jain and Praveen Kumar Devi Chand Jain.

Investigations by Sebi revealed that a total of seven persons had cornered more than 98 per cent of the shares in the “employee category” during the IPO, making an unlawful gain of about Rs 2.31 crore.

Of the seven, Sebi freed Sanjay Jhabak and Dheeraj Jain through a consent order after payment of a fee.

“The investigations also revealed that these seven persons, in collusion with PSTL, donned the cloak of ‘employee’ on the eve of public issue for 4 to 6 months with the sole purpose of receiving shares under the employee category,” the order said.
While five of them left the company after making applications, two others did so immediately after the allotment of shares, the order added.

Under the Sebi order, the five banned people have to pay about Rs 1.23 crore and 20 per cent interest on the unlawful gain for the period from the date of sale of shares till disgorgement.