Sebi starts probes in 108 new cases in FY'14

Capital market watchdog Sebi started probe into 108 new cases related to manipulations in the securities laws and completed investigation in 120 matters during the last financial year.

With this the total number of cases at the end of 2013-14 stood at 1,880, of which investigations into 1,659 matters have been wrapped up by the market regulator.

“During 2013-14, 108 new cases were taken up for investigations and 120 cases were completed compared to 155 new cases taken up and 119 cases completed in 2012-13,” the Securities and Exchange Boards of India (Sebi) said in its latest annual report.Of the 108 cases where Sebi had began probes in 2013-14, 62 per cent (67 cases) pertained to market manipulation and price rigging as against 55 per cent matters in 2012-13.

Besides, insider trading and violations of the takeover norms accounted for 12 per cent (13 cases) and 5.6 per cent (6 cases) respectively in 2013-14. The remaining cases were related to manipulations in capital issue and other violations of capital markets norms.

“Since, several investigation cases involved multiple allegations of violations, water-tight classification under specific category becomes difficult,” Sebi said in the report.

"Therefore cases were classified on the basis of main charge/violation,” it added.Meanwhile, of the 120 investigations finished by Sebi in 2013-14, market manipulation and price rigging cases accounted for 60.8 per cent compared to 34 per cent in the preceding financial year.

Insider trading  accounted for 10.8 per cent, capital issue violations (10 per cent), takeover violations (5 per cent) and other securities laws violations (13.3 per cent), of the total investigations completed by Sebi in 2013-14.