SEBI cracks whip on market manipulators
Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) conducted search and seizure operations in connection with pump and dump schemes in June 2025, according to a statement on June 27.
'It is hereby clarified that SEBI has conducted search and seizure operations at multiple locations in the month of June 2025 in connection with pump and dump in certain scrips and has seized incriminating evidence. Investigation in the matter is under progress,' the markets regulator said in a statement.
Over the past month, SEBI had pulled up two cases on front running and market manipulation. One of them was Sanjiv Bhasin, a research analyst at IIFL Securities who had manipulated stocks which he recommended on television channels and had profited off them. Major stocks like Interglobe Aviation (Indigo Airlines) were manipulated using unpublished price sensitive information. The other being a pump and dump scheme in which prices of Sadhana Broadcast Ltd. and a few other stocks were pumped up by promoters and others with the help of social media and sold to more than 100 investors, significant of them being actor Arshad Warsi.
SEBI had served interim orders against both of them asking them to disgorge the amount they had benefitted from this and banned them from securities market as per regulations.
Pump and dump scam refers to a scheme when people take a position in stocks which are mostly SME or illiquid stocks, create a hype by recommending them to investors. Once the price of the stocks are high, they would sell them and bag the profit, leaving the investors will losses. It is violation according to Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices relating to Securities Market) Regulations of SEBI.
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