The Hindu Business Line : Aastha, 39 other entities barred from trading

AASTHA Broadcasting Network Ltd and 39 other entities have been debarred by SEBI from dealing in securities and accessing the capital market till January 14, 2007.

These entities were associated with the irregular preferential allotment of shares made by Aastha in August 2000, said SEBI in its order. Further, the shares allotted in the preferential allotment and lying in the demat accounts of 17 entities forming part of the 39 entities specified above, which were frozen by an earlier interim order of SEBI dated January 15, 2004, and confirmed by an interim order dated June 15, 2004, has been continued till January 14, 2007.

Aastha has been charged with violating the provisions of Clause 13.5A and 13.3 of the SEBI (Disclosure and Investor Protection) Guidelines, 2000, and Aastha along with the 39 other entities has been charged with violating the provision of Regulation 5(1) and 6(a) of SEBI (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices Relating to Securities market) Regulations, 1995.

SEBI has observed the following relating to Aastha and the nature of its conduct in the context of the preferential allotment made by it: "Aastha has in a clever subterfuge, put in place a chain of entities for engineering a web of transfers and retransfers among them in a bid to create a make-believe of fund-rolling the preferential allotment, when there was actually no infusion of funds for the large part of the allotment."

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