SEBI v. Chetan Sukhdev Pandit and Prahlad Vithaldas Panchal (misused auditor names in company filings, 2025)

Dismissed

✓ 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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In May 2025 a SEBI adjudicating officer disposed of, without penalty, proceedings against two directors accused of fraudulent audit reports and misstated financial statements at two listed companies. The officer held that the allegations against them were not established, after a tribunal had sent the case back for a fresh notice.

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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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.

What is alleged to have happened

On 23 May 2025 a SEBI adjudicating officer issued an order on the audit reports of ACIL Cotton Industries, Universal Credit and Securities Ltd., Mindvision Capital Ltd. and RFL International Ltd. The two noticees were Chetan Sukhdev Pandit, a director of Universal Credit, and Prahlad Vithaldas Panchal, a director of Mindvision. SEBI's investigation covered April 2011 to March 2018.

SEBI's case was that the companies had used the names of chartered accountants as statutory auditors without authority, filed fraudulent audit reports, published untrue financial statements or filed no annual reports, and that the two directors were responsible and had also ignored summonses. An earlier adjudication order of October 2022 covering eighteen entities was appealed. In October 2024 the Securities Appellate Tribunal allowed the appeals and sent the matter back so that a fresh show cause notice could be served. The charges rested on section 12A(c) of the SEBI Act and the PFUTP Regulations, plus listing, securities contracts and summons provisions.

The officer found the summons allegations unproven, because the delivery proof for one noticee was an unsigned postal card and the other's evidence of receipt was doubtful after a building redevelopment. On the substantive charges, he noted that both men said their names and signatures had been misused, that one left his post early in the period, and that the other had been listed as a director for years. He held that the investigation had not shown either man took an active part in misusing the auditors' names or publishing the statements, and that holding a directorship alone did not make a person liable.

The proceedings were therefore disposed of without any penalty. The officer did not decide whether the companies themselves misused the auditors' names, because that was not before him as to these two noticees.

The record does not show any outcome for the companies or other directors, whether SEBI appealed this order, or any criminal case. The order is a dismissal, not an acquittal of anyone else.

This library tags the matter as misleading issuer disclosure. 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.

• Misleading issuer disclosure — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2025-05-23 SEBI 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.