Speaking out against the insider-trading charges slapped by SEBI against 13 members of his family and certain others, Jignesh Shah, the promoter of Financial Technologies (now known as 63 moons technologies), said the unpublished price sensitive information was all there in public domain.

“If they had offloaded on inside information, they would have sold their entire holding and not partially,” said Shah.

Blaming former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram for his fall from grace and recent SEBI order, he said there are a group of people in each government department who still owe allegiance to the erstwhile UPA-II government.

“I had never come to media when they filed 98 cases and arrested me three times, but now I’m forced to reach out to the fourth pillar of our society as they are now targeting my family and people whom I have mentored,” said Shah.

Ex-parteorder Venkat Chary, Chairman, 63 moons technologies, said this is the first time in the history of India that a regulator has passed an ex-parte order to impound ₹125 crore of ‘loss averted’ by a set of people and that too by a (SEBI) Member who is retiring next month.

“Nobody invests in the market to make losses. If SEBI is so concerned, it should not allow any employees to sell their shares. It is absurd that an employee not even remotely connected to the management is being charged with insider-trading,” said Chary, who has served the government for 38 years and was former Chairman of the FMC.

Venkat Chary said it is for the victims to decide whether to challenge the SEBI order at the Securities Appellate Tribunal. If they do so, the Board (of 63 moons) will take a call on supporting them.

Questions the formula Despite passing an interim order, SEBI has frozen all bank accounts of the 13 people, thereby rendering them helpless to meet even their day-to-day requirements, he said, questioning SEBI’s formula to determine losses and then to impound them.

With this unprecedented order to recover the ‘averted loss’ by arbitrarily freezing somebody’s bank account, SEBI has challenged Article 19 of the Constitution which protects citizen’s right to live.

A victim of SEBI’s order, Mehmood Vaid, Senior Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, 63 moons technologies, said the shares were allotted to him as employee stock option (ESOP) and these was sold after the mandatory lock-in period.

“It is highly unfortunate that SEBI is passing such a devastating order to freeze the bank accounts even without hearing the person who is facing the charges. Now, all the cheques issued for housing loan and school fees will bounce,” he added.

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