Sebi slaps Rs 25 lakh fine on Citrus Check Inns directors
The penalty imposed on Omprakash Basantlal Goenka, Prakash Ganpat Utekar and Venkatraman Natarajan has to be paid jointly and severally within 45 days.
The regulator found that Citrus continued to collect installments from existing investors despite Sebi’s interim order of June 3, 2015 and confirmatory order of August 24, 2015, which barred the company and its directors from collecting fresh money and launching new schemes.
The order noted that receipts submitted by two investors showed payments totalling Rs 50,000 were collected after the June 2015 prohibitory order. The payments continued for several months, including in February 2016.
The directors had argued that the collections were inadvertent and resulted from the company’s large network of collection agents and pre-existing auto-arrangements. They also contended that there was no evidence of any deliberate instruction to agents to continue collecting funds.
However, Sebi said the directors failed to demonstrate that they had taken steps to stop the collections. It held that Citrus had a principal-agent relationship with its collection agents and was responsible for their acts or omissions.
The regulator also rejected the contention that Utekar and Natarajan, being non-executive directors, were not responsible for the company’s affairs.The Securities and Board of India (Sebi) noted that corporate records showed that as promoter-directors, with both having signed the company’s financial statements and being associated with Citrus since its inception.
The proceedings were taken up afresh after the Securities and Appellate Tribunal (SAT) in June this year had set aside the earlier 2018 adjudication order against the three directors and remanded the matter to Sebi.
The directors had told SAT that they were in Central Jail, Nashik, and could not access the company address where the show-cause notice was served.
The tribunal found that the notices and the earlier order had not been effectively served and directed Sebi to reconsider the matter.
