SEBI v. Bhavin Pradyumna Pandya and Rakesh Natavarlal Bhatt (bulk SMS and website tips, Global Infratech and Finance, 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.

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A SEBI adjudicating officer fined two partners in a Surat marketing business Rs 10 lakh, jointly and severally, in September 2022 for a text-message and website campaign that promised large gains in Global Infratech and Finance shares. The order finds the messages false and misleading and links the noticees to the website.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

—

Alleged gain

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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

A SEBI adjudicating officer in Mumbai decided this matter on 23 September 2022. The noticees are Bhavin Pradyumna Pandya, the proprietor of Biz Buddy, and Rakesh Natavarlal Bhatt, described as his partner in Bizbuddy Media Marketing. The shares are those of Global Infratech and Finance Limited, listed on BSE.

SEBI examined the period December 2017 to February 2018. The price had hovered around Rs 105 before the period, ranged from about Rs 92 to Rs 120 during it with trading volumes far above normal, and then fell to about Rs 34 by mid-2018. SEBI received complaints about the website midcapmantra.in and text messages sent under the header HP-MANTRA, which urged recipients to invest in a coming multibagger stock, forecast a rise from about Rs 105 to over Rs 170 within two months and quoted profits of 60 to 70 per cent.

SEBI traced the domain payment to a bank account of the Biz Buddy proprietorship, of which Mr Pandya was signatory, and noted that the business regularly paid Mr Bhatt's credit card bills. It alleged that the two ran the campaign and circulated misleading information, in breach of section 12A of the SEBI Act and PFUTP Regulations 3(a) to (d), 4(1) and 4(2)(k). Both replied in writing; Mr Bhatt appeared at the hearing and Mr Pandya was given a second opportunity.

The officer found the charges established, treating the messages as false and misleading information designed to induce investors, and imposed a penalty of Rs 10,00,000 under section 15HA, payable jointly and severally by the two.

The record does not show how many recipients bought the stock, who held the shares that were sold into the buying, any gain by the noticees, or whether the order was appealed.

This library tags the matter as false rumors. 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. 2022-09-23 SEBI adjudication order

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.