Sebi on Monday imposed a penalty of Rs 15 crore on senior officials of Franklin Templeton AMC and its trustee for violating regulatory norms in the case of winding up of six debt schemes in 2020.
However, a spokesperson of Franklin Templeton said they disagree with the findings in Sebi’s order and intend to file an appeal with the Securities Appellate Tribunal.
A fine of Rs 3 crore has been levied on Franklin Templeton Trustee Services Pvt Ltd and Rs 2 crore each on Franklin Asset Management (India) Pvt Ltd president Sanjay Sapre and its chief investment officer Santosh Kamat, according to the Sebi order.
In addition, the regulator imposed a penalty of Rs 1.5 crore each on fund managers — Kunal Agarwal, Pallab Roy, Sachin Padwal Desai and Umesh Sharma — as well as former fund manager Sumit Gupta.
Besides, a Rs 50 lakh penalty has been levied on chief compliance officer Saurabh Gangrade.
They have been directed to pay the penalty within 45 days.
Sebi noted that the trustees of Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund (MF) and these officials failed to avert certain lapses in the functioning of the mutual fund.
‘‘The acts and deeds committed by them while discharging their duties are not in the interest of the unitholders in specific and the investors in general,’’ Sebi said in its 151-page order.
