The Securities and Exchange Board of India today passed an interim order barring two promoters of publicly listed entertainment company Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd, and 228 others, for allegedly forging a letter and passing it off as a Sebi order in December 2008 to manipulate the company’s stock resulting in substantial losses to investors.

Key to the alleged conspiracy, according to today’s Sebi order, is the forged letter asking one of the promoters P S Saminathan, chairman and managing director of Pyramid Saimira, to make an open offer for an additional 20 per cent stake at a price not less than Rs 250. The order says that the other promoter Nirmal Kotecha had sold over 15 lakh shares on Monday, December 22, the day some newspapers published a story based on the forged letter.

In its order, Sebi said that Rakesh Sharma, then an executive with public relations firm Adfactors PR Pvt Ltd and Rajesh Unnikrishnan, Assistant Editor, The Economic Times, a business daily belonging to the Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd, “played a key role in the forgery, dissemination of information and misleading the media to believe its authenticity.”

Kotecha, the order says, even propped up an “imposter” who posed as Company Secretary and “confirmed” the forged letter to reporters who called up to check.

When asked for his comment, Rahul Joshi, Executive Editor, The Economic Times, said: “We have seen the order. We are studying it.”

According to the Sebi order, tower location of mobile telephones used by Sharma, Kotecha (registered in the name of one Amol Kokane) and Unnikrishnan indicated the three met on December 20, around the time when the forged letter was circulated to the media. Sharma, whose service was terminated by the PR firm the very next day (Tuesday, December 23), had in a statement to Sebi which he later retracted, also admitted that Unnikrishnan and he went to Kotecha’s residence to mail the forged letter to “media friends.”

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