In fact, the Herbertsons stock had touched the 52-week high of Rs 87 on the BSE on last Friday. Not only that the scrip which normally reports a volume of less than 500 shares registered a volume of 1.21 lakh shares on the NSE on that day. The stock showed volatility on the BSE on Wednesday with the price moving between Rs 69.20 and Rs 72.75. ``This indicates some speculators have also joined the band-wagon... they are trying to capitalise on the Mallya-Chhabria battle,'' said a source.

Seeing the rise in the shareprices, even small investors have started jumping onto the band-wagon and started acquiring the shares. As usual, the share will fall once the AGM is over and these investors will burn the fingers.

Mallya and Chhabria control nearly 85 per cent of the equity capital of the company while the public holds around 10 per cent. Kishore Chhabria, who is currently the vice chairman of the company, holds 43 per cent -- in addition to this, another 4.5 per cent was refused transfer -- while Mallya has around 37 per cent. However, thanks to the support from the board of directors which is tilted in favour of Mallya, the latter managed to become the managing director of the company recently and the Department of Company Affairs ratified the move.

Chhabria has already served a notice on Herbertsons seeking removal of UB group and Herbertsons chairman Mallya and his directors S S Gandhi, S K Biswal, S R Gupte, S D Lalla and V K Rekhi from the board of the company. Besides, Chhabria has also opposed the reappointmentof three more directors whose term is coming to an end this year. Not to be left behind, Mallya has approached the Company Law Board (CLB) against mismanagement in the affairs of Herbertsons.

On the other hand, SEBI is yet to decide on the violation of the takeover code by both the parties in Herbertsons. Sebi has not yet acted on its earlier order asking Chhabria to make an open offer to their shareholders as per the new takeover code.