New Delhi: Answering in the Lok Sabha, acting Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said that Reliance Petroleum is among the companies against whom the government has received complaints of insider trading.
Capital markets regulator SEBI is investigating allegations of insider trading in the shares of Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL), the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
"SEBI has informed that it has initiated an examination into the matter," minister of state for finance PK Bansal said in a written reply.
Bansal was responding to a query by Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh on whether the government had taken any action against the promoters/affiliates of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) over alleged insider trading in RPL stock.
RIL, in a statement issued on Tuesday, said, "Reliance Industries Ltd and its group companies have complied with all rules and regulations and will cooperate and provide all the necessary information to the concerned authorities."
RIL had raised Rs 4,023 crore by divesting 4.01 per cent of its stake in RPL, the company said on November 24. While the actual date of the stake sale is not known, shares of RPL had moved by a wide margin between late October and early November.
Prior to that, NSE had banned futures trading on the RPL counter after the stock reached the market-wide position limit of over 90 per cent and no fresh positions were allowed by the exchange for more than two weeks. Investors were allowed to square off their existing positions before taking any fresh exposure in the stock.
The stake sale by RIL in RPL was made under the guise of a bailout for liquidity-strapped small and retail shareholders caught in a bind by the maxed-out RPL counter.
SEBI got alerts about nine companies in 2006, six in 2007, three in 2008 and one this January.
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