Sebi imposes Rs 15 lakh penalty on Roopal Nareshbhai Panchal in IPO scam

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has imposed a penalty of Rs 1500000 on Roopal Nareshbhai Panchal for her role in the initial public offer scam for the period 2003-2005.The regulator has alleged that Roopal acted as a key operator along with others by indulging in fraudulent and manipulative activities to corner the shares for retail investors in the 16 initial public offerings(IPOs) of IDFC ,Suzlon Energy,NTPC,TCS and Yes Bank among others.Sebi's investigations revealed that Roopal made large number of applications in these IPOs reserved for retail category by opening various demat accounts in fictitious and benami names.In the process of opening demat accounts it was alleged that Roopal forged bank letter heads and on allotment of shares in the IPOs, she transferred the said shares from fictitious accounts to her own accounts,sebi said.Subsequently the shares were transferred to many other entities who were financiers to the whole process.