Sebi Busts £ 173 Crore Insider -Trading Linked to Cerc official, bursts eight of Securities Market

The Capital Markets regulator ordered that the alleged illegal profits of more than £ 173 be impounded of certain individuals after exposing an insider trade scheme involving an official of the Central Electricity Regulation Commission (CERC) and trading in the shares of Indian Energy Exchange Ltd (IEX). The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) hampered eight individuals from the security market, according to an Ex parte -Tussentage order issued on October 15. The regulator gave notice to deposit the ‘bad profits’ into interest-bearing fixed deposit accounts with a lien marked in Sebi’s favor. All eight individuals are from two main family groups: the Soran family, which includes Bhoogan Singh, his parents Amar Jit Singh Soran and Amita Soran, and Amita’s sister Anita; And the Kumar family consists of the brethren Narender Kumar, Virender Singh, and Sanjeev Kumar, with the wife of 29.58. Dip in IEX’s share price on July 24. This accident followed an announcement made by the Cerc on July 23 about the implementation of ‘market connection’ or the collection of buy-selling orders from power exchanges. Sebi also received a formal complaint claiming that insider trade is in the company’s script. Coordinated trade ring The investigation revealed that these two families were connected by business interests, including joint directorships and shareholding in companies such as GNA Energy PVT. Ltd. and First Mile Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Sebi’s preliminary investigation paints a photo of a well -coordinated operation to take advantage of unpublished pricing information (UPSI) leaked within CERC. Cerc’s decision to implement “market linking”, centralizing the bid of the bid of all power exchanges to determine a uniform price, is expected to affect the dominant market position of IEX and negatively affect the trade volumes and revenue, making the information very price sensitive. The UPSI period was set to be from July 1, 2025 to July 23, 2025, when the order was made public. The investigation focused on Yogeita S. Mehra, head of the Economics Division at Cerc, as an important source of the leak. The Cerc management on market connection comes from her division. Sebi found that Mehra had a deep personal and family connection with Bhoovan Singh, one of the most important accused, who was also an alumnus of a college where she was a professor. Evidence collected during search and seizure operations, including deleted chats of messages -apps, revealed that Mehra regularly shared confidential cerc documents and internal discussion details with Bhooban Singh. Singh then distributed this information to Sanjeev Kumar and Narender Kumar through a WhatsApp group called “OTC”. Sanjeev Kumar, as the CEO of a Cerc regulated entity, also had direct access and regular communication with Cerc officials. Armed with this definite information, the group took massive short positions by buying a large amount of IEX options in the days before the Cerc announcement, especially between July 21 and July 23. A put option is a contract that gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to sell an asset at a predetermined price on a specific date. The container benefits from the price of an asset below the price. For most of the accused in this case, it was their first trade in the derivative segment, which indicates a high degree of certainty about the imminent price drop. As predicted, IEX share price, when the market connection order was published, collapsed, and the accused hung their positions, with a total profit of over £ 173. Sebi noted that part of these funds had been transferred to associated companies afterwards. The investigation is investigating the roles of other potential suspects. Sebi has been linked to the purchase, sell or trade in securities for eight until further notice until further notice. Their bank and demat accounts are frozen to the extent of the impounded amount, and it is prohibited from removing any assets without Sebi’s consent.