Supreme Court upheld ₹25 crore Reliance penalty for derivatives position-limit violations
Company: Reliance Industries Limited
Summary
On May 29, 2026, the Supreme Court of India issued its final judgment in the long-running Reliance Petroleum derivatives case. The Court upheld a ₹25 crore penalty against Reliance Industries Limited for violating disclosure requirements associated with position limits under a 2001 Securities and Exchange Board of India circular. The case concerned Reliance's 2007 sale of shares in its then 75-percent-owned subsidiary Reliance Petroleum Limited and futures positions taken through 12 entities acting as agents. The Supreme Court agreed that the position-limit requirements had been violated and left the related monetary penalty in place. Crucially, however, the Court overturned SEBI's and the Securities Appellate Tribunal's findings of fraud and market manipulation. It held that the evidence did not meet the necessary legal standard for a fraudulent or manipulative trading finding. The Court therefore set aside the ₹447.27 crore disgorgement order and directed that ₹250 crore previously deposited by Reliance be refunded. This Rotten Company entry must not describe Reliance as having committed fraud or market manipulation in this incident. The evidence is included because the Supreme Court still upheld a final regulatory penalty for the position-limit disclosure violation. Its severity is lower than it would have been had the fraud finding survived. The record deliberately distinguishes the surviving technical securities violation from the far more serious allegations that were judicially rejected. Primary source — Supreme Court of India, 2026 INSC 585: https://www.sci.gov.in/sci-get-pdf/?diary_no=268252020&from=latest_judgements_order&order_date=2026-05-29&type=j
Record details
- Category
- Financial Misconduct
- When it happened
- November 2007–November 29, 2007
- Status
- Resolved (May 29, 2026)
- Severity
- medium
- Added to Rotten Company
Source
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