Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has directed Siddhant Suresh Chandan to refund ₹3.99 crore collected from clients and investors as fees, consideration or in any other form for providing unregistered investment advisory (IA) services, after recalculating the amount pursuant to directions issued by securities appellate tribunal (SAT).
The latest
order follows a remand by the SAT which, while upholding SEBI's findings that Mr Chandan had acted as an unregistered investment adviser, set aside the earlier computation of the refund amount and directed the regulator to recalculate the fees collected after giving him an opportunity to explain the entries in his bank accounts.
During the fresh proceedings, Mr Chandan claimed that several credits in his SBI and ICICI Bank accounts represented income from online business, brokerage, loans from family members and firms, salary and other non-investment advisory transactions. He also contended that he had refunded a substantial portion of the fees he had collected from clients. However, despite receiving multiple opportunities and extensions, he failed to submit adequate documentary evidence to substantiate most of these claims, SEBI noted.
SEBI observed that although Mr Chandan submitted classified bank statements and other documents, including Form 26AS, identity documents and partnership records, he failed to explain how these supported his claims or establish that many of the disputed credits were unrelated to his investment advisory activities. The regulator also found inconsistencies in the manner in which similar transactions had been categorised as either consulting income or unsecured loans without supporting evidence.
The regulator nevertheless excluded ₹17.82 lakh from the original computation after finding that certain credits were clearly unrelated to investment advisory activities. These included cashback, refunds, reversal entries, bank interest, self-transfers and receipts from Angel Broking which were supported by bank narrations and Form 26AS showing brokerage-related income.
After excluding these genuine non-advisory transactions from the original bank credits of ₹4.17 crore, SEBI recalculated that Mr Chandan had collected ₹3.99 crore from clients for unregistered investment advisory services and held that the entire amount was liable to be refunded.
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