Axis MF front running case: Sebi refers to 'jadugar' in its order; who is he?

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) took time to come out with is first set of actions in the Axis Mutual Fund front running matter that saw the fund house sack two of its employees last year in May and the capital market regulator, on Tuesday, barring as many as 21 entities from the stock markets with nearly Rs 30.56 crore of unlawful gains to be impounded. 

It was a detailed probe by the regulator and the interim order-cum-show cause notice ran into 96-pages but one interesting element of the order was the existence of a ‘jadugar’ – the Hindi word for magician.  

The importance of the ‘jadugar’ – it mentions ‘jadoogar’ also four times -- can be gauged from the fact that the order mentions the terms more than 20 times in the order. 

So, who was the jadugar? 

Firstly, the roots of the matter go back to February last year when amidst concerns related to front running by its own staffers, Axis Mutual Fund initiated a suo moto investigation that ultimately led to sacking of its chief trader Viresh Joshi and assistant fund manager Deepak Agrawal. 

Now to find the identity of the so-called 'jadugar', the capital market regulator had to rely on WhatsApp chats and emails shared between the accused entities in the matter. 

As per the Sebi probe, the ‘jadugar’ was none other than Joshi himself who, going by the regulatory order, is the prime accused or conspirator of the front running matter. 

In one of the WhatsApp chat records included in the Sebi order, Joshi’s brother, on February 2, 2022, mentioned that “today jadugar birthday” –Viresh Joshi’s birth date is February 2, 1974 as per his KYC details. 

There are other instances related to chats with respect to trade details, front running trades and formation of Vintage Capital Investment LLC that corroborated the fact that 'jadugar' was none other than Joshi. 

Incidentally, Joshi directed other co-accused individuals to form Vintage Capital Investment LLC in Dubai and made his father and brother partners in the firm in whose bank account money from the front running trades were transferred. 

“In view of the aforesaid discussions, based on the cumulative effect of the following attending circumstances on the basis of preponderance of probability, it can be sufficiently ascertained that ‘Jadugar’ is none other than, Mr. Viresh Joshi,” stated the Sebi order while highlighting chat records, trade history and money trail.