Rajesh Exports Limited, or REL, has been making headlines across India’s business publications since Wednesday after market regulator Sebi published a 109-page interim order questioning revenues worth Rs 15.15 lakh crore attributable to the company’s subsidiaries and ordering a fresh forensic audit.
The order triggered a sharp market reaction, with Rajesh Exports shares hitting the 5% lower circuit for two consecutive trading sessions. Sebi has also restrained promoter-chairman Rajesh Mehta from accessing the securities market while the investigation continues.
For many investors, the order was the first time they had heard of Rajesh Exports, a Bengaluru-headquartered gold company that owns Valcambi in Switzerland, widely regarded as the world’s largest gold refinery. Rajesh Exports has reported annual revenues running into several lakh crore rupees which became known to many after Sebi’s interim order.
But while this week, questions surrounding Rajesh Exports are not new. Long before Sebi launched its current investigation, market watchers, analysts and investor-rights advocates had questioned whether the company’s reported financials matched the scale of the business it claimed to operate.
Today, as one of India’s most unusual listed companies finds itself under regulatory scrutiny, many of those old questions are being revisited.
Rajesh Exports is not a small or obscure company.
Founded by entrepreneur Rajesh Mehta and headquartered in Bengaluru, the company built its reputation as a global gold giant with operations spanning refining, jewellery manufacturing, exports and retail.
Its biggest asset is Valcambi in Switzerland, widely regarded as the world’s largest gold refinery. Rajesh Exports acquired the refinery in a $400 million deal in 2015, a move that transformed the company into one of the world’s largest precious metals refining groups.
The company also operates jewellery stores under the SHUBH Jewellers brand and has often claimed a presence across the entire gold value chain.
What made Rajesh Exports stand out, however, was the sheer scale of its reported revenues.
According to figures cited in Sebi’s interim order, the company reported consolidated revenue of around Rs 2.58 lakh crore in FY21, Rs 2.43 lakh crore in FY22, Rs 3.39 lakh crore in FY23, Rs 2.80 lakh crore in FY24 and Rs 4.23 lakh crore in FY25.
In FY26, revenue surged further to nearly Rs 7.78 lakh crore.
Those numbers would place Rajesh Exports among India’s largest companies by turnover.
Yet despite those enormous sales figures, profits often remained tiny.
In the March 2026 quarter alone, the company reported revenue of Rs 2.36 lakh crore but ended with a net loss of Rs 53.5 crore.
That gap between massive revenues and modest profits has long puzzled market observers.
One of the earliest and most detailed public examinations of Rajesh Exports came in 2014.
That year, financial publication Moneylife published an analysis questioning whether the company’s financial statements accurately reflected the scale of operations being described to investors.
At the time, Rajesh Exports was reporting annual revenue of more than Rs 31,000 crore and was already projecting itself as a major player in the jewellery and gold business.
Moneylife pointed to what it described as unusual mismatches between the company’s reported revenues and several expense and asset figures.
The publication noted that employee costs were only around Rs 7 crore despite annual revenue exceeding Rs 31,000 crore. It argued that such expenses appeared unusually low for a company involved in jewellery manufacturing, exports, retail operations and international business activities.
The report also highlighted selling and administrative expenses of roughly Rs 20 crore, plant and machinery worth around Rs 7.76 crore and computer assets that appeared remarkably small relative to the scale of the reported business.
Another issue raised by the publication involved the company’s balance sheet. Rajesh Exports had reported cash and bank balances of nearly Rs 9,846 crore while simultaneously carrying borrowings of around Rs 2,695 crore.
Moneylife questioned why a company claiming such large cash reserves would continue to maintain significant debt.
The publication also pointed to an exceptionally high asset-turnover ratio and argued that several financial figures appeared difficult to reconcile with the size and complexity of the business.
At the time, these observations remained part of a public debate rather than a regulatory investigation. But they represented some of the earliest attempts to scrutinise the company’s unusually large revenue figures.
The questions did not stop with the 2014 investigation.
Over the next decade, Moneylife co-founder and investor-rights advocate Debashis Basu continued to publicly question aspects of Rajesh Exports’ financial reporting and disclosures.
In January 2014, Basu wrote on social media:
“Rajesh Exports is a large listed company. Something funny with its accounting.”
The comment accompanied the Moneylife article that examined the company’s financial statements.
The questions resurfaced again in August 2015 after the company reported quarterly results.
“Rajesh exports reported 23.71 cr profit in June quarter but 0 tax provision. Game continues.”
In July 2016, after Rajesh Exports entered the Fortune 500 rankings on the back of its massive reported revenues, Basu again expressed scepticism.
“Rajesh exports in Fortune 500, replacing ONGC? You can fool all the people all the time, in some cases.”
Three years later, in June 2019, he referred to the company as:
“that mysterious Rajesh Exports.”
The recurring theme behind many of these comments was the disconnect between the company’s extraordinary revenues and what critics saw as unusually small expenses, assets or profits relative to those sales figures.
According to Sebi’s interim order, the current investigation began after a shareholder complaint
The regulator subsequently appointed a forensic auditor to examine the company’s books.
Among Sebi’s key observations was that between 97% and 99% of Rajesh Exports’ consolidated income came from subsidiaries and branches.
The regulator has alleged that revenues worth Rs 15.15 lakh crore attributable to subsidiaries between FY21 and FY25 may have been inflated.
Sebi also said the forensic auditor faced difficulties obtaining complete access to books, ERP systems and transaction-level data relating to overseas entities.
The regulator further pointed to discrepancies involving subsidiary reporting and raised questions regarding related-party transactions.
These findings remain preliminary and the investigation is continuing.
In a statement issued after the interim order, the company said there had been “no adverse conclusion” reached by the regulator and maintained that its reported revenues were accurate.
“The revenues declared by the company are correct and there is no over stating of revenues,” the company said.
Rajesh Exports also said there appeared to be a “communication gap and confusion” between it and Sebi and added that it was in the process of submitting all relevant documents and clarifications.
“The company is confident that Sebi in its wisdom will clarify the situation and arrive at the correct conclusion based on the authenticated documents which are in the process of submission by the company,” it said.
The significance of those early warnings is not that they prove Sebi’s allegations.
They do not.
Sebi’s investigation is ongoing and Rajesh Exports will have an opportunity to present its defence before any final conclusions are reached.
But the historical record shows that concerns surrounding the company’s accounting, disclosures and unusually large revenues were not suddenly discovered in 2026.
For more than a decade, questions had been raised in public about how one of India’s highest-revenue companies could operate with financial metrics that many market observers found difficult to understand.
Now, with Sebi examining alleged revenue inflation of Rs 15.15 lakh crore and the stock locked in a lower circuit for two straight sessions, those old questions have acquired a new significance.