The move follows reports of close to Rs 300 crore worth of such tainted shares being in circulation. To top it all, there are several contradictions in the number of such shares put out by companies to various stock exchanges. All this has led to a fear in the market with no reliable figures coming out.

``It is essential to gauge the magnitude of the problem,'' said Pratip Kar, executive director of Sebi and incharge of secondary market operations while confirming that the regulator was designing a format which would enable exchanges to provide the required information to Sebi.

Meanwhile, after Hindustan Lever, it is now the turn of Dr Reddy's Laboratories to correct the figures of fake and forged shares given to various stock exchanges in November this year.

In a letter dated December 2, the assistantcompany secretary of Dr Reddy's has intimated the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) that the earlier figures issued to the stock exchange were incorrect. Instead, only 87,994 shares have been identified for stop transfer. ``As per our records as of today, we have only 87,994 shares put under stop transfer,'' reads the letter. It should be recalled that the company had earlier notified a huge figure of around 12 lakh shares under the stop transfer category. However, the company has not mentioned the folio and the distinctive numbers of the shares which have been identified as fake and forged shares.

Similarly, BSE top officials cited the case of 7-8 companies where the exchange realised that there was a wide degree of discrepancy in the figures which were released to BSE and NSE.

``In the case of Dr Reddy's, the clarification was only sent in when the exchange took up the initiative to seek details on why such a discrepancy took place,'' explained a senior BSE official.

Interestingly, BSE realised that therewas a wide gap between the figures given to them by various companies and the share tranfer agents, in the light of the information downloaded by NSCCL, the clearing house of NSE on November 24.

It should be recalled that Hindustan Lever, in a query raised by the BSE intimated various exchanges on November 30, that the shares reported either as lost or covered under court restrictions, were only 1.76 lakh and not 6.21 lakh as informed earlier to the NSE. According to a company spokesperson, A portion of these shares are also in the form of jumbo certificates.

Besides HLL and Dr Reddy's, companies such as Infosys Technologies, Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund, Wipro, BPL, Himatsingka Seide, Reckitt & Colmann, SBI, MRPL, TVS Suzuki, Sundaram Clayton and Sundaram Finance have intimated the exchanges to stop transfer in certain portion of their floating stock, as they have been identified as fake and forged shares.

It is also learnt that in accordance with the listing agreement, companies are expected to intimatethe bourses on fake, forge, stolen and bad deliveries which is identified during the process of share transfer.