Traders & Stories

Last week Securities And Exchange Board Of India (SEBI) issued an (interim) order barring four persons from trading in stock market.

SEBI found these four guilty of manipulating share price of Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd. One of them is a Public Relations executive. Another fellow is assistant editor with Economic Times. His name is Rajesh Unnikrishnan.

The two gentlemen allegedly helped a third guy -- an investor -- publish a story in the papers which said SEBI had directed Saimira to buy back its own shares. A SEBI letter was e-mailed to business reporters.

SEBI had issued no such letter. It was a forgery. But when the news appeared in papers, company's share prices shot up, says SEBI's investigation report. Before SEBI could clarify that there was no such order, the investor fellow had made a killing by offloading his stock.

An FIR was lodged in December, SEBI's interim investigation report came last week.

It is possible that SEBI is wrong. Unnikrishnan can not be condemned before he is tried.

The question is: how come he isn't fired yet? Is it because Times Of India management believes in innocent-untill-proven-otherwise dictum?

Postscript: Saimira is Times Of India's private treaty partner. In other words, TOI group has a stake in the company.