SEBI v. Sanjay Arunkumar Choksi and others (Telegram tips, Retro Green Revolution, 2026)

Judgment entered

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 8, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, in a single reading of the order; an independent second reading of 60 SEBI records agreed on every field for 56, the four misses being penalty amounts; a later sample of 50 of the SEBI records added on 9 October agreed on every field for 46. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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A March 2026 SEBI order found that a promoter-linked Choksi group and associates pushed up the price and volume of Retro Green Revolution shares, helped by Telegram tips, so the group could sell out. It orders disgorgement of about Rs 2.94 crore, restraints of three to five years on eighteen noticees and penalties totalling Rs 2.8 crore.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

28m INR

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars. This regulator states penalties in INR. The figure is recorded as published and is not converted, so it does not appear in the USD totals or medians used elsewhere on this site.

What is alleged to have happened

The order of 17 March 2026 was made by a SEBI quasi-judicial authority in Mumbai. It names twenty-one noticees in the matter of Retro Green Revolution Limited (RGRL), a listed company. They include Sanjay Arunkumar Choksi and a group of related persons and companies treated together as the Choksi group, Western Agrotech Innovative Limited, and several individuals alleged to have traded or promoted the scrip. The Choksi group held about 42 per cent of the company at the end of financial year 2021.

SEBI investigated trading from September 2020 to December 2021 after stock tips circulated on Telegram channels. Its show-cause notice of 8 November 2024 alleged that some noticees created new high prices and first trades of small lots, that others gave exits to the Choksi group through matching trades, and that Telegram posts in December 2021 lifted volume further, in breach of section 12A of the SEBI Act and the PFUTP Regulations.

The order finds that the price and volume of RGRL were manipulated, that the Choksi group exited through that activity, and that the Telegram messages helped create the volume needed. It treats the lead noticee and a company, Western Agrotech, as the recipients of the unlawful gains, and it takes repeat conduct into account for two noticees who had earlier SEBI orders. Three noticees were cleared and the notice was disposed of against them without direction.

The directions restrain eighteen noticees from the securities market, for five years in the case of Mr Choksi, Mr Pujara, Western Agrotech and Mr Agarwal and three years for the rest, and order Mr Choksi and Western Agrotech to disgorge Rs 2,94,01,679.26 with 12 per cent simple interest from 31 December 2021. Penalties range from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 50 lakh and total Rs 2.8 crore. The order also bars the affected noticees from selling assets except to pay what is due.

The record does not show whether any noticee appealed, whether the sums were paid, or what public shareholders lost. It describes no criminal case. One noticee had died before the hearings, and cross-examination of the lead noticee was delayed by medical reasons.

This library tags the matter as social media ramps and price manipulation. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the order.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with 2 techniques in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Social media ramps — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.
• Price manipulation — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2026-03-17 SEBI final order with restraints, disgorgement and penalties

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEBI order
• SEBI order (PDF)

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added October 8, 2026. submit a correction.