Sebi has banned four entities from the securities market for six months for providing unauthorised investment advisory services and directed them to return investor funds received through such services within three months.

Bound by Sebi are Course Work Focus and its owner Shashank Hirwani, and Capital Research, its owner Gopal Gupta and Capres owner Rahul Patel.

In two separate orders, Sebi found that the entities provided investment advice to their clients without registering with Sebi.

According to Sebi, between March 2018 and July 2020, Course Work Focus and Hirwani received over Rs 9.6 lakh from investors. Capital Research, Gupta and Patel raised Rs 60.84 crore between June 2014 and November 2019 by providing unregistered investment advisory services.

In a final order passed on Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said that they violated the provisions of the Investment Advisers (IA) norms by doing so.

In its order, Sebi directed entities to refund fees received from clients or investors for unregistered investment advisory activities within three months.

In addition, they are prohibited from directly or indirectly entering into and dealing in securities markets in any way for six months or until the expiry of six months from the date of completion of the refund to investors, whichever is later.

The orders follow Sebi’s inspection of alleged unregistered investment advisory activities following complaints against Capital Research, Capres and Course Work Focus.