"The display has been removed to avoid any misuse of information. This information was used by some brokers to give out a wrong picture to the market by punching orders of large quantities at the end of the circuit filter," said RC Mathur, executive director of BSE. He explained that the move has been envisaged to avoid the creation of an artificial depth in the market. The exchange has however decided to continue with the practice offlashing the best five buy orders and sell orders at the counter.

The sell and buy depth is a reflection of the total pending sale and buy orders of the market. Mathur, also explained that the purpose of allowing to view the depth of sale and buy orders was to give out a signal to the market participants about the nature of the market movement.

According to market observers, the sell and buy depth helps the players feel the pulse of the market, since it provides a clear picture of the market interest at the counter. However, according to sources, this facility was misused by some vested interests to create an artificial depth in the market.

Interestingly, the preliminary investigations into the punching errors reported at the counter of ITC on December 4, highlighted that the broker had made a move to create an artificial depth in the market, which reflected on the stock price as well. The stock surged from the day's average of Rs 706 to a high of Rs 725, thus misleading the market.

"Theinvestigations brings to light that the broker actually wanted to punch in a sell order of 3 lakh shares, which erroneously got reported as buy order at Rs 725," explained a senior official of BSE.

It may be recalled that on December 4, the last day of the trading cycle on the BSE, JGA Shah, on deactivation of his terminal reported that the purchase order of 3 lakh shares punched at the price of Rs 725 was erroneous.

The broker had then reported that there was a punching error in both the quantity as well as the price reported on the exchange. Following deactivation of his terminal, Shah, claimed that his purchase order was for a meagre 30,000 shares. There could have been more serious problem, but for the fact that the entire transaction of 3 lakh shares could not go through as mid-way through itself Shah breached his gross exposure limit.

However, the punching error saw the order of 3 lakh shares being punched in at Rs 725 which inevitably formed the highest bid for the day. It should be noted thatat this point of time, the stock was quoted in the price band of Rs 680-692.

On the broker's plea that the transaction was erroneously punched, the exchange offered him the concession to square off his position.

The error helped the market record an unrealistic price of Rs 725 at both BSE and the National Stock Exchange.