Mumbai, Sept. 28: Signalling the first crackdown on penny stocks, the Securities and Exchange Board of India today barred the promoters and directors of Minal Engineering Ltd and IFSL Ltd from dealing either directly or indirectly in the shares of the companies. Both the penny stocks had registered phenomenal gains over the past few months.

The action came on a day the sensex marched past another peak ? 8600 points ? in a last-hour spike fuelled by FII buying.

The sensex opened at 8535.81, hit an intra-day low of 8475.68 and a high of 8613.38 before cooling off at 8606.03, up 80.51 points over Tuesday’s close. Reliance finished at a new high of Rs 800.30, a jump of over 1.50 per cent over its last close.

In almost identical orders issued against the two companies, Sebi’s wholetime member G. Anantharaman said the bar on trading would come into force immediately pending a full-scale investigation into the share dealings in the two companies.

Minal Engineering had notched up one of the sharpest gains in recent times, having risen 105 times or 10,446 per cent in 97 trading sessions from a below par level of Rs 4.33 on February 7 to Rs 452.35 on September 15.

“The promoters and directors of Minal Engineering Ltd ? J.B. Parikh, Shrikant J. Parikh, J.V. Joshi, Amul J Patel, Vikram J. Parikh, Malay Karbhari and Kamlesh Khandhor ? shall not buy, sell or deal in securities of Minal Engineering, directly or indirectly,” the Sebi order said.

It directed the depositories not to give effect to any transfer of shares in Minal Engineering “lying in the beneficial owner accounts of the promoters and directors. It also barred Minal from reissuing its forfeited shares or issuing any bonus shares. “If such reissue or issue is already made, the allottees shall not further transfer the shares and the company and the depositories shall not give effect to any such transfer,” the note said.

The order against IFSL covers not only the promoters and directors but also its clients and a clutch of stockbroking firms, including Indiabulls Securities Ltd (formerly Orbis Securities Private), Insight Share Brokers Private Ltd., Fortis Securities, Joindre Capital Services, India Infoline Securities Private, Ruchiraj Share Stock Broker, Penninsular Capital Market Ltd and Archi Stock Brokers.

All of them have been barred from directly or indirectly dealing in the shares of IFSL.