Once the market regulator issued a press statement that it had not issued any such letter on December 23, Sharma was terminated from his service by the PR firm, which never had Pyramid as a client.

The other significant part of the plot, the order said, was the attempt to ensure by the trio to not just disseminate the forged letter to the media, but also make the media believe its authenticity. Sharma, who has been a business journalist earlier, used the services of two former journalists Dheer Kothari and Ashok Jainani to spread the information, Sebi said.

When a reporter sought to ascertain the veracity of the information in the forged letter, Kotecha sent the number of one Ganesan working in the company’s Chennai office to Sharma by SMS. When the reporter got back stating that the contents were denied by Ganesan, Kotecha provided another telephone number, purportedly of Pyramid Saimira’s Company Secretary Kanhucharan Sahu to Sharma, the order said based on the latter’s statement to Sebi.

Unnikrishnan too provided the contact details to Sharma, the order said. When reporters called this number, the person, one Pratheesh Kumar V.K. — an imposter, according to the order — confirmed that the company had received the letter.