Sebi levies Rs 17-cr fine on Cals Refineries Ltd, its officials and one entity

The scheme of arrangement of Cals, in allotting GDR issue to only one entity Honor Finance Ltd which subscribed to the GDR issues by obtaining loans from Banco Efisa and which were secured by Cals Refineries by pledging its GDR proceeds, seen along with the false and misleading corporate announcements made by Cals stating that the GDR was issued and allotted without disclosing the crucial details lead to a conclusion that the same were done in a fraudulent manner, Sebi noted.

Honor was beneficially owned by Sanjay Rai Malhotra.

Further, Cals paid USD 92 million to a promoter controlled entity — Asia Texx Enterprises Ltd, whose beneficial owner Gagan Rastogi was one of the promoters of Cals.

Gagan is also the son of Deep Kumar Rastogi, who was a director of Cals.

The transaction between Cals and Asia Texx appears to have been structured to settle the outstanding liability of Honor to Banco using funds of Cals, the order noted.

Directors of the firm had played the major role from the side of Cals with regard to the issuance of the GDRs in a fraudulent manner and the subsequent fraudulent transaction with Asia Texx, it added.

In addition, Cals failed to disclose details of outstanding GDRs in its quarterly disclosures of shareholding pattern to the BSE.

Accordingly, Sebi has levied a total fine of Rs 16.8 crore on the entities.

Those facing fine apart from the firm are Asia Texx Enterprises Ltd, Devanathan Sundararajan, Gagan Rastogi, Deep Kumar Rastogi, Sarvesh Kumar Goorha, Ravi Chilukuri and Sanjay Rai Malhotra.

In a separate order, Sebi imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh each on six entities and four individuals for fraudulent trading in the scrip of Rutron International Ltd.

They violated Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices, Sebi noted.

It found that the entities created misleading appearance of trading and manipulated the price in the scrip of Rutron by trading among themselves.

Dhanlakshmi Brokers, Padma Impex, Comfort Intech, Esquire Enclave and Helpful Investment Advisory are among the entities that have been fined by Sebi.

Through three separate orders, Sebi levied total fine of Rs 20 lakh on Srinathji Dall Mills, NS Agrawal Trading Corporation Ltd and Satish Kumar Agrawal for violating Prohibition of Insider Trading norms while dealing in the shares of Sanwaria Consumer Ltd (earlier known as Sanwaria Agro Oils Ltd).

They were designated person under the PIT Regulations, and as designated persons, they were required to obtain pre-clearance for the trades executed by them which exceeded the threshold prescribed by the company.

However, they failed to do so.

Agarwal also failed to make requisite disclosures regarding his trades within the stipulated time.