Investigative sources told The Financial Express that in one case, that of RNA Builders, Sebi has reportedly found about Rs 50 crore worth of funding into the stockmarkets through some broking entities. Sebi has found that of this, Rs 50 crore from RNA, as much as Rs 20 crore has found its way to First Global, the broking firm of Shankar Sharma. First Global figures in the Sebi bear-hammering probe and has also been raided by Income-Tax authorities recently.

Sources said the issue of large-scale funding of brokers and their impact on possible price manipulation is now being probed by Sebi, but the regulator was getting to the bottom of the funding aspect owing to the large sums of money involved. ``Of the Rs 50 crore, if Rs 20 crore has gone to one broking firm alone, this aspect has to be looked into,'' the sources said.

When contacted, First Global director Devina Mehra said: ``RNA Builders is a client of ours. They are an arbitrage client and as far as our deals are concerned, they are not involved in any particular stock in a major way.''

On the Amara Raja Batteries probe, Sebi has once again found the same entity, RNA, as figuring prominently with about Rs 7-8 crore invested in the stock.

Sebi's probe into market manipulation entails looking into building up of positions before the March 2 crash of the stockmarket, and the players responsible for it. Other investigative agencies have also got involved in the probe, and the latest entrants are the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and the enforcement directorate (ED) who are probing the channelling of funds through the foreign institutional investor (FII) route as well. In case of Amara Raja Batteries and the Cyberspace probes, the major exchanges have withheld payouts until the investigations are completed.