A Vellayan, charged with insider trading 'steps aside'

CHENNAI: A Vellayan, whom market regulator SEBI has charged with insider trading over a stock market transaction done in 2011, has 'stepped aside' as Chairman of the Murugappa Corporate Board, Coromandel International, and EID Parry India.

A statement issued by his office termed the act of linking Vellayan to the trades by two individuals "far-fetched tenuous conjecture" and based merely on suspicion.

A statement from the company says this move is in keeping with "family values and tradition," until the matter is fully resolved.

Vellayan, who had headed the board of the Murugappa Group, belongs to a family of industrialists who run the Rs 24,350-crore group that is into a diverse range of businesses including from sugar to cycles.

In the statement, the group says that the market regulator bases a property transaction Vellayan had with AR Murugappan, a distant relative to Vellyan who had effected the trade, as the reason for drawing Vellayan into the charge, an inconclusive finding.

Vellayan is resolute in defending the harm caused by this order and will extend full cooperation to SEBI in its investigations, the statement said.