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Judgment
Tarun Agarwala, Presiding Officer
The present appeal has been filed against the order of the Adjudicating Officer (‘AO’ for short) of Securities and Exchange Board of India
(‘SEBI’ for short) dated November 28, 2019 whereby a penalty of Rs. 2 lakh has been imposed upon the appellant for violation of Regulation 3
and 4 of SEBI (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices relating to Securities Market) Regulations, 2003 (‘PFUTP Regulations’ for
short).
We have heard Mr. Sougata Sarkar, the learned counsel for the appellant and Ms. Nidhi Singh, the learned counsel for the respondent through
video conference.
The appellant has contended that there is a delay of 55 days in filing the appeal. At the outset, this fact is incorrect, in as much as, the appeal was
filed on September 15, 2020 and thus there is a delay of 255 days. The ground urged is, that the appellant was unaware of the impugned order in as
much as the notices were never served upon its full time director Mrs. Pooja Goyal who was residing in Mumbai and that the summons were duly
served at the head office of the appellant company in Ahmedabad. It was contended that since Mrs. Pooja Goyal was a full time director and she had
no knowledge of the entire proceedings and only came to know this recently and therefore the delay in filing the appeal should be condoned.
We find that the ground urged in the application for condonation of delay as well as attacking the impugned order on merit is one and the same and
therefore the application and the appeal are being decided together.
The contention of the learned counsel for the appellant is without any merit. We find that the show cause notice was duly delivered to the appellant
by registered post acknowledgement due. Further, notices dated May 6, 2019 and June 27, 2019 intimating the date for hearing was duly served upon
the appellant. Other than that, a public notice dated October 1, 2019 was published in the Hindustan Times, Maharashtra Times and Navbharat Times.
These facts have not been disputed by the appellant. The only contention is that notices should have been served upon the full time director Mrs.
Pooja Goyal at her residential address in Mumbai. In our opinion the submission of the appellant is patently erroneous. Service was made as per
procedure at the head office of the appellant. In spite of service the appellant failed to appear nor filed any objection or reply to the show cause
notice. Consequently, the charges leveled against the appellant in the show cause notice are deemed to be admitted by the appellant.
We also find that a specific finding has been given by the AO in the impugned order that the appellant along with Noticee Nos. 1 to 5 and 8 had
traded amongst themselves and manipulated the price of the scrip of Kausambi Vanijya Ltd. (now known as Golden Bull Research & Growth Ltd.)
which contributed to the market positive LTP of Rs. 54.80 and therefore was manipulative and violative of Regulation 3 & 4 of the PFUTP
Regulations. This finding has again not been contested by the appellant.
In the light of the aforesaid, we do not find any error in the impugned order.
For the reasons stated aforesaid, we do not find any merit in the appeal as also miscellaneous application. It is accordingly dismissed with no order
as to costs.
The present matter was heard through video conference due to Covid-19 pandemic. At this stage it is not possible to sign a copy of this order nor a
certified copy of this order could be issued by the registry. In these circumstances, this order will be digitally signed by the Presiding Officer on behalf
of the bench and all concerned parties are directed to act on the digitally signed copy of this order. Parties will act on production of a digitally signed
copy sent by fax and/or email.