MUMBAI, June 19: The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) today upheld Sebi’s penalty of Rs 3 lakh on Link Intime India related to irregularities in acting as a registrar for seven IPOs during the 2004-07 period.
These IPO’s included that of Tech Mahindra, Parsvnath Developers and Lanco Infratech.
Last year, Sebi had slapped a penalty of Rs three lakh on Link Intime for committing various mistakes as registrar to an issue (RTI) and Share Transfer Agent (STA). The fine was also imposed for irregularities in bank schedules and delay in redressing investor grievances by it.
In its order, SAT said that “in the face of hundreds of proved or admitted mistakes which are rather serious in nature, the tribunal does not find it a fit case for exercising its discretion to reduce the penalty by modifying the impugned order in any manner whatsoever”.
The tribunal also noted that it could have taken a more lenient view if the case was of minor and ignorable negligence.
As per details in SAT’s order, Link Intime “is perhaps the largest RTI in the country and even the Respondent (Sebi), Mumbai has chosen it as the Back Office Service Provider for their Investor Grievance Cell”.
The case relates to an inspection conducted by Sebi in 2007 and 2009 into certain affairs of Link Intime in issuing seven Initial Public Offers (IPOs).
According to Sebi, the inspection was undertaken on random sample basis and a large number of discrepancies were found by its investigating team.
The regulator said the errors found were mainly due to deficiencies in Link Intime’s system.
“The samples proved it beyond doubt that there were blatant, glaring and unpardonable mistakes repeatedly committed by the appellant (Link Intime) in the seven IPOs,” Sebi said in its submissions to SAT.
“Hundreds of mismatches were found on record, multiple allotments of shares were made to one individual in many cases,” it added.
Further, Sebi had found that as many as 4,981 investor complaints against Link Intime India were not dealt with within the prescribed time. (PTI)
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