SEBI v. Paresh Nathalal Chauhan (Timbor Home bulk-SMS share scheme, remand order, 2025)

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.

Report an error in this record (sebi-98776-price-manipulation-2025) by email

In December 2025 SEBI decided afresh, after a tribunal remand for improper service of notices, that one investor took part in a scheme using bulk SMS tips to sell Timbor Home shares received free from promoters. It ordered disgorgement of about Rs 1.62 crore with interest and a Rs 5 lakh penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

—

Penalty as published

500k 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

N. Murugan, a chief general manager of SEBI, issued this order on 31 December 2025 about one noticee, Paresh Nathalal Chauhan. The Securities Appellate Tribunal had set aside SEBI's 2020 section 11B order and 2021 adjudication order against him because the show cause notices were not shown to have been served, but left in place the findings on the scheme against others, and sent the matter back.

The notices alleged that promoters of Timbor Home Limited moved shares by off-market transfer to many accounts, including the noticee's, for no payment, while connected entities sent bulk SMS messages urging purchase of the shares, lifting trading volumes and the price, and the recipient accounts sold into that demand. The noticee said his documents and accounts had been misused by a friend who was a chartered accountant, that he did not trade, and that he kept no proceeds.

The order relies on off-market transfer records, depository slips, trade logs and bank statements to find that he sold the shares through his own trading account and received the proceeds in his bank account, and that he took part in a fraudulent and manipulative scheme in breach of the fraud provisions of the SEBI Act and PFUTP Regulations. It treated the cost of the shares as nil and computed unlawful gain of Rs 1,62,05,039.88 from the sale of 15,38,447 shares on the BSE and NSE.

It directs disgorgement of that amount with interest at 8 percent a year from 20 August 2014, and a penalty of Rs 5,00,000 under section 15HA. No new market ban was imposed because he had already served the two-year restraint from the 2020 order. Non-payment within 45 days triggers a restraint until he pays.

The record does not show whether he appealed again, whether the sums were paid, or how the order treated others in the scheme beyond the references to the tribunal's earlier decision.

This library tags the matter as price manipulation and pump-and-dump (bulk SMS tipping). 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.

• Price manipulation — 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. 2025-12-31 SEBI order on remand

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

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.