SEBI report points to malpractices in Tayal group company JTREL

A report by capital market regulator SEBI has revealed that an employee of in the secretarial department of KSL and Industries was holding Rs155 crore worth of shares in Jaybharat Textiles & Real Estate (JTREL), both companies being part of the Tayal group, which is being probed by both SEBI and the Reserve Bank of India.

The employee in question is not the only one warehousing shares for the promoters of the company where he works. Several employees of the group have been acting as fronts for the promoters and holding shares on their behalf.

JTREL along with 30 other entities has been barred by a SEBI order issued last evening from buying or selling shares in the stock market until further notice, for under reporting their shareholding in the company.

The regulatory move follows two days after SEBI had barred PK Tayal and his son Saurabh Kumar Tayal, key shareholders in Bank of Rajasthan, for allegedly underreporting their holdings in the private bank.

According to analysts Friday's action appears to conclude a co-ordinated joint regulatory action by SEBI and RBI. The action was initiated by the banking regulator first, when it ordered a special audit into the accounts of Bank of Rajasthan - in which PK Tayal is a dominant shareholder. This came about as the bank fell foul of certain operational norms.

According to the SEBI order, the promoters of JTREL, Saurabh Kumar Tayal, Nina Tayal, Jyotika Tayal, Bhavana Tayal, Ram Pratap Tayal and Vandana Tayal held shares far in excess of what they declared publicly.

''The promoters have been able to disguise the extent of the shareholding in their company in a devious manner through the artifice of holding the shares of their company to their benamis, in most cases their employees or workers,'' the order said.