SEBI v. Rajneesh Kumar and others (Superior Finlease Ltd pump and dump, 2024)

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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On 22 May 2024 a SEBI whole-time member found that a stockbroking director and 18 others pumped Superior Finlease Ltd with connected-account trading and Telegram buy tips on 14 September 2021, then sold into the rise. The order barred all 19 noticees from the market, ordered disgorgement with interest and imposed penalties totalling Rs 11.9 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

119m 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 final order of 22 May 2024 was issued by a whole-time member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India after an interim order and notice of January 2023. It names 19 noticees: Rajneesh Kumar, a director of a stockbroker, two people SEBI called operators, an intermediary, the administrator of two Telegram channels, and 14 connected individuals and companies, including Ashish Kumar Singh, Orion Retail and Spire Marketing. The shares involved are those of Superior Finlease Ltd, a small company with very modest sales.

SEBI's case was that entities connected to Mr Kumar traded in the shares from February to September 2021, lifting the price from about Rs 100 to over Rs 200 mostly through trading among themselves and with buys above the last price. On 14 September 2021 the two Telegram channels pushed buy recommendations to subscribers, volume jumped about twenty-four times, and eleven connected sellers sold into the demand, while the price fell steadily afterwards. The entities making up the price rise accounted for about 41 percent of volume and 63 percent of positive price movement in the first period.

The order, relying on digital and forensic evidence, found that the noticees had conspired in the pump and dump, with Mr Kumar the originator who used operators and the channel administrator to attract investors, and rejected arguments about miscalculated profit and the trading positions of some noticees. It referred the company's financial position to the National Financial Reporting Authority.

Seventeen noticees were restrained from the securities market for five years, and the intermediary and channel administrator for three years. The 17 were ordered to disgorge the amounts in the order's tables with 12 percent simple interest from 14 September 2021. Penalties under section 15HA were Rs 5 crore on Mr Kumar, Rs 2 crore each on the two operators, Rs 1 crore on the intermediary, Rs 50 lakh on the channel administrator and Rs 10 lakh on each of the other 14, Rs 11.9 crore in total.

The record does not show whether the order was appealed or the disgorgement and penalties recovered, and it describes no criminal case. The total disgorgement is not stated in a single figure in the passages relied on here.

This library tags the matter as social media ramps and pump and dump. 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.
• Pump and dump — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2024-05-22 SEBI final 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
• 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.