Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has again indicted former Tata Finance Ltd (TFL) managing director Dilip Pendse, this time for facilitating sale of one lakh TFL shares worth Rs 69 lakh held by the then director J E Talaulicar.

SEBI had earlier indicted Pendse for passing on price sensitive information about TFL to his wife and associates.

"Pendse and Shilotri, a Nishkalp official, aided through their counselling and organising the dealings in TFL shares for Talaulicar and thus violated the provisions of SEBI Insider Trading Regulations," the report said.

In its investigation on alleged insider trading in TFL shares by Pendse and his associates, SEBI has found that Talaulicar's shares were sold through a sub-broker of JIP Securities Ltd in off market transactions.

"The price of TFL shares on BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) as of March 31, 2001 was around Rs 40 per share while Talaulicar and his family fetched Rs 69 lakh by offloading shares at Rs 69 per share to Pendse's friend, which was significantly higher than the prevailing rate," the regulator has observed.

"Being a director of TFL, Talaulicar was aware of the prevailing market price and this prima-facie appears to be a very unusual transaction as somebody could purchase shares at the rate of Rs 40 in the stock market, bought the shares at of over 70 per cent premium to the market price at Rs 69 per share for some unexplained reasons," SEBI has pointed out.

SEBI's investigation states that with Pende's help Talaulicar had arranged through JIP to backdate the contract suitably to September 9, 2001 to match the price of Rs 69 per share.

PTI