India’s markets regulator has directed Growpital and related entities to repay over ₹192 crore to investors after finding it operated a unauthorised collective investment scheme linked to agricultural projects, with penalties and bans imposed on key promoters.
India’s markets regulator has ordered the winding up of the Growpital investment platform, saying it operated an unauthorised collective investment scheme that took in ₹192.88 crore from 5,208 investors and promised tax-free returns from agriculture-linked projects. The Securities and Exchange Board of India issued its final order on 28 September 2026, directing the company and related entities to repay investors with 12% annual interest and to stop collecting fresh money.
According to SEBI, the scheme was marketed as an agricultural opportunity offering returns of up to 18.5%, with some plans requiring an initial investment of just ₹5,000. The platform launched 18 investment schemes between April 2020 and January 2024, drawing in retail investors with the promise of stable, tax-efficient gains from farmland and crop production.
The regulator said the structure was designed to make investors feel like owners. Growpital placed them into a limited liability partnership, which may have given the impression that they had direct rights over farmland and the business. But SEBI found that the lease and ownership papers were not in the investors’ names. Instead, the documents were held by the promoter company, Yotta Agro, or its subsidiaries, leaving investors without any legal ownership of the land.
SEBI also said the platform did not appear to have enough land to support the returns it had advertised, and it questioned whether the claimed yield and revenue figures matched the underlying agricultural activity. On that basis, Whole-Time Member Kamlesh Varshney ordered the scheme closed and directed that investor money be returned.
The order, which also covers 28 other entities, imposed penalties totalling more than ₹25 crore and barred the main promoters and related parties from the securities market for up to five years. Reporting from Moneycontrol and other outlets said the eight principal noticees were held jointly responsible for the repayment, underscoring SEBI’s view that the fund-raising model amounted to an unregistered collective investment scheme rather than a legitimate agricultural investment product.
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