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Summary: An expert recommends a stock on television as a long-term buy. His viewers rush in. Three minutes later, he calls his dealer. The instruction: sell. SEBI's order against Sanjiv Bhasin reconstructs that sequence, almost to the minute.
SEBI’s order against Sanjiv Bhasin shows how a famous face on business television bought stocks in the morning, recommended them on air, and sold them to his own viewers minutes later.
When an expert on television tells you to buy a stock ‘for the long term’, you assume he believes it. SEBI’s interim order against Sanjiv Bhasin shows what that advice can be: an exit route. The regulator found that Bhasin and eleven associates made unlawful gains of Rs 11.37 crore by trading against his own public recommendations, and has impounded the entire amount.
Bhasin was one of the most visible faces on business television. He appeared on Zee Business, ET Now, CNBC Awaaz and others, introduced as ‘Director, IIFL’. His calls also went to all IIFL clients through its Telegram channel and app. The Times Group signed an exclusive contract with him in 2023 on the strength of his retail following.
How the scheme worked
SEBI’s investigation, covering January 2020 to June 2024, describes a repeated pattern. Before going on air, Bhasin would buy a stock through the accounts of Venus Portfolios, Gemini Portfolios and HB Stockholdings, companies connected to his cousin Lalit Bhasin, with orders placed by dealers at RRB Master Securities, a Delhi brokerage. He would then recommend the stock on television, usually as a long-term buy. As viewers rushed in, he would instruct the dealers to sell.
One illustration shows the choreography to the minute. On January 11, 2022, Bhasin called dealer Rajiv Kapoor at 9:55 am to buy L&T Technology Services futures. At 1:33 pm, on Zee Business’s ‘Bhasin ke Hasin Share’, he recommended LTTS as a long-term buy with a Rs 5,800 target. At 1:36 pm, he called the dealer again. The instruction: sell.
The recommendations moved markets. NSE volume in LTTS jumped from an average of 687 shares in the 15 minutes before the call to 7,302 shares in the two minutes after the call, with no corporate announcement to explain it. The buyers were viewers acting on the expert’s advice. The seller was the expert.
The evidence trail
SEBI’s June 2024 search-and-seizure operations recovered call recordings, WhatsApp chats, and trade logs that matched each other almost to the rupee. In one recorded call, Bhasin instructs the dealer to buy 1,000 shares of LTTS at Rs 5,665. The exchange log shows a buy order one minute later for exactly that quantity and price.
The chats reveal the bookkeeping. Bhasin and his cousin exchanged daily profit sheets. After one Parag Milk Foods trade, Bhasin messaged: ‘Now Rs 1.22 cr is cash. Kindly get this in my daily sheet.’ The dealer had saved Bhasin’s trading number, registered in his wife’s name and used almost only during market hours, as ‘Guru Kripa’. The dealers themselves copied his impending trades in their own accounts. In all, the twelve noticees ran up nearly 40,000 scrip-days of trading, and over 60 per cent of their Rs 8,584 crore intraday stock-futures turnover matched Bhasin’s recommendations.
The order and the lesson
The June 17, 2025 order impounds Rs 11.37 crore jointly from all 12, bars them from the market and freezes their assets. The final order could add disgorgement with interest and penalties. In August 2025, SAT unfroze Bhasin’s accounts after he deposited Rs 1 crore with SEBI. The case continues.
SEBI passed similar orders against Hemant Ghai in 2021 and Kiran Jadhav in 2023. The pattern repeats because a trusted face can move a price within minutes, and that power is worth money. The lesson: a stock tip on television is entertainment, not advice. The person giving it may be on the other side of your trade. A diversified fund, a regular SIP and patience will beat every ‘hasin share’ ever recommended on air. That advice has no seller waiting for you.
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