In Brief
The Supreme Court upheld SEBI's enforcement action against respondents who unlawfully cornered shares in IPO offerings of Jet Airways and IDFC by using hundreds of fictitious or benami demat accounts with suspicious common addresses and coordinated pricing. The respondents purchased shares from these accounts at artificially depressed prices and resold them at higher prices, defrauding retail investors of their share allocations. The Court held that such off-market trading violates the Securities Contracts Regulation Act and SEBI regulations, and that the Securities Appellate Tribunal erred in setting aside SEBI's detailed findings without articulating specific justifiable reasons for its reversal.
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