SC holds Wockhardt CFO guilty of insider trading

The Supreme Court today upheld a sectoral tribunal’s ruling which held Wockhardt’s chief financial officer Rajiv B Gandhi and others guilty of insider trading. A bench headed by Justice S H Kapadia rejected Gandhi’s plea challenging the Securities Appellate Tribunal’s judgement which refused to set aside the penalty imposed by Sebi for violation of Regulations 3 and 4 of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Insider Trading) Regulations, 1992, read with Section 15G of the Act. Sebi while holding Gandhi, his wife Sandhya Gandhi and his sister Amishi Gandhi guilty of insider trading had imposed a penalty of Rs 500000 on each of them on the ground that they had traded in the scrip of Wockhardt on the basis of unpublished price sensitive information and the same was not available to the investors.