BOMBAY, Aug 12: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Tuesday it had banned fresh purchases of shares of Indian software firm Mastek Ltd by foreign institutional investors.

``The overall ceiling of 30 per cent of paid up equity capital permitted to be held by all registered foreign institutional investors together with purchases made by all NRIs (non-resident Indians) and OCBs (overseas corporate bodies) under the portfolio investment scheme has already been reached in the case of Mastek Ltd,'' an RBI statement said.``Therefore no further purchases of shares of this company should be made through stock exchanges on behalf of foreign institutional investors/NRIs/OCBs,'' it said.

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