Press Trust of India
New Delhi, August 20: In a fresh clampdown on entities misusing stock markets for evading taxes, regulator Sebi Thursday barred 59 entities, including HNIs, from securities markets and also referred the case to the Income Tax Department for further investigations. The banned entities include Riddisiddhi Bullions, Woodland Retails Pvt Ltd, Mahakaleshwar Mines & Metals Pvt Ltd, Shir Commodities & Futures (P) Ltd, Gyandeep Khemka, Ashok Kumar Damani, Jaideep Halwasiya, Swaran Financial, Gurmeet Singh and Vision Sponge Iron.
Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) found that there were several entities which consistently made significant loss and others who consistently made significant profit by executing reversal trades in stock options on the BSE. The trading pattern of both loss-making and profit-making entities in this case fails to justify any of the normal strategies of hedging, speculation and arbitrage.
While, more than 950 entities have already been banned from capital markets by the regulator for suspected tax evasion of at least Rs 5,000-6,000 crore, Sebi chairman U K Sinha had recently said. Following Thursday’s order, the number of barred entities in such matters has crossed 1,000. However, this the first instance of action on tax-evaders using stock options. These large numbers of organised syndicates had set up ‘shops’ to convert black money into legitimate-looking funds through the stock market platform, he added.
