SEBI v. Malay Bhow and others (bulk SMS tips, South Indian Bank options, 2022)

Judgment entered

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 9, 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.

Report an error in this record (sebi-59535-market-abuse-2022) by email

In June 2022 a SEBI adjudicating officer fined five people Rs 10,00,000 jointly and severally for a bulk SMS campaign that urged recipients to buy deep out-of-the-money South Indian Bank put options on expiry day, 23 February 2017. SEBI found that a partnership that was the main seller of those options made about Rs 8.95 lakh.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

—

Penalty as published

1m 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 3 June 2022 grew out of a complaint received on 23 February 2017 with screenshots of text messages recommending put options on South Indian Bank at Rs 0.05 for a target of Rs 0.50, along with complaints from buyers who lost money. The five noticees were Malay Bhow, the chief financial officer of the broker Sunflower Broking, Taresh Gorasia, an employee of one of its authorised persons, Himanshu Tiwari, and Paresh and Kavitaben Mehta, partners in HET Enterprise.

SEBI alleged that Mr Tiwari, posing as a person called Subodh, used bulk SMS services to send out a recommendation to buy a strike of Rs 17.50 when the share had not been near that level for months, so the tip was misleading, and that Mr Bhow knew of it. It said HET Enterprise, trading through Sunflower, was the largest seller of those puts on the day and so benefited from buyers who acted on the tip, and that Mr Gorasia was in touch with it.

The adjudicating officer weighed call records, telecom and SMS-provider records, bank verification, account-opening data and trading data, and rejected arguments about delay, lack of cross-examination and the dissolution of the partnership. He concluded that all five were aware of the scheme and took part, in breach of section 12A of the SEBI Act and Regulations 3(a) to (d) and 4(1), 4(2)(k) and 4(2)(r) of the PFUTP Regulations.

The penalty is Rs 10,00,000 under section 15HA, to be paid jointly and severally by all five. The investigation figure for HET Enterprise's profit was Rs 8,94,807.

The record does not show whether the penalty was paid or appealed, the total loss to buyers of the options, or whether the sellers' identities and the SMS sender were ever tested in any court. The order contains no market ban.

This library tags the matter as false rumors, because the core finding is that a misleading mass message steered inexperienced buyers into options on which others profited. 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 one technique 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.

• False rumours — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2022-06-03 SEBI adjudication order (3 June 2022)

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
• 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.