Actor Arshad Warsi and his wife Maria Goretti, are among 45 individuals and companies banned by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) from participating in the securities market, officials said on Thursday. The decision comes after an investigation into allegations of share price manipulation by certain entities of two companies, Sharpline Broadcast Ltd and Sadhna Broadcast Ltd, through uploading misleading videos on YouTube channels.
Along with the ban, SEBI has impounded illegal gains worth Rs 54 crore made by the entities after misleading videos were uploaded on YouTube channels. Two separate interim orders detail the investigation's findings.According to the interim order, Arshad Warsi made a profit of Rs 29.43 lakh, Maria Goretti earned a profit of Rs 37.56 lakh, and Iqbal Hussain Warsi made a gain of Rs 9.34 lakh. These three individuals, among others, have been classified as volume creators by SEBI
SEBI found that certain individuals uploaded false and misleading videos recommending investors buy shares of Sadhna Broadcast Ltd and Sharpline Broadcast Ltd for extraordinary profits. In addition to Arshad Warsi and Maria Goretti, some promoters of Sadhna Broadcast Ltd have also been restrained from participating in the securities market. The misleading YouTube videos are no longer publicly available, but they are in SEBI's records. Warsi took to Twitter and denied the allegations against him and his wife, stating that they lack knowledge of the stock market and requesting everyone not to believe hearsay. Please do not believe everything you read in the news. Maria and my knowledge about stocks is zero, took advice and invested in Sharda, and like many other, lost all our hard earned money," he wrote.