Sebi bars TV anchor, technical analyst, others from markets; imposes penalties

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has barred former CNBC Awaaz anchor Pradeep Pandya and Alpesh Furiya, a technical analyst earlier associated with the Hindi business news channel, from accessing the securities market for five years and fined them ₹1 crore each.

The regulator has also barred six other entities for five years and imposed a penalty of ₹10 lakh each.

Sebi alleged that Pandya while serving as an anchor for the television channel, shared confidential information regarding upcoming stock recommendations with Furiya and vice-versa. Furiya, capitalising on this privileged information, executed trades through his own accounts and those of related entities, positioning himself to profit before the recommendations were publicly aired.

This behaviour not only demonstrates a clear intent to leverage insider information but also reveals a systematic approach to exploiting the information asymmetry for personal gain, the regulator said.

In many aspects the present case is similar to a classical front-running case where a trader tries to take advantage of the expected price change resulting from an impending transaction in securities, the regulator said.”When TV anchors engage in sharing material non-public information, as noted in this case, it not only breaches ethical standards but also distorts market dynamics. Such acts of selective information dissemination give unfair advantages to a few, undermining the principle of equal access to information. This erosion of trust can lead to a significant loss of confidence among investors, who may feel that the markets are rigged against them,” Sebi whole-time member Ashwani Bhatia said in his order.