The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Thursday asked 15 guest experts including Nirmal Kumar Soni, Partha Sarathi Dhar, Simi Bhaumik, Mudit Goyal, Himanshu Gupta, Ashish Kelkar and Kiran Jadhav, appearing on the Zee Business news channel to pay ₹7.41 crore for the “unlawful gains” that they made by taking opposite positions in the market than they advised on air.

The others are Ramawatar Lalchand Chotia, SAAR Securities India, Ajaykumar Ramakant Sharma, Rupesh Kumar Matoliya, Nitin Chhalani, Kanhya Trading Company, Manan Sharecom and SAAR Commodities.

According to the market regulator, they indulged in fraudulent and unfair acts and unlawfully enriched themselves by taking advantage of being in a position to influence innocent investors.

Three categories

In order to have a better understanding of the matter and the role played by suspected entities, they have been divided into three categories — profit makers, enablers and guest experts.

The first category — Profit Makers — comprises entities (Nirmal Kumar Soni , Partha Sarathi Dhar, SAAR Commodities Private Ltd, Manan Sharecom Private Ltd and and Kanhya Trading Company) that made profits by executing trades which were allegedly done based on advance information of stock recommendations given by guest experts.

The second category comprises entities (Nitin Chhalani, Rupesh Kumar Matoliya, Ajaykumar Ramakant Sharma SAAR Securities India Private Ltd and Ramawatar Lalchand Chotia) that allegedly aided/assisted Profit Makers in making profit based on advance information of stock recommendations of guest experts.

The third category comprises guest experts who appeared on different shows on the Zee Business and provided/issued stock recommendations to viewers of this channel. It is pertinent to mention here that these experts have significant presence in social media. Kiran Jadhav, Ashish Kelkar , Himanshu Gupta, Mudit Goyal and Simi Bhaumik have been referred to as “Guest Experts”.

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