Continued portion of my earlier post.
At that time, once a trader got the trade wrong (I am speaking of majority retail traders), invariably delivery of share certificates would be taken. Then comes the real agony. Along with the transfer deed, you send it to the company. If all goes smoothly, shares will be transferred in your name and you will get back share certificate endorsed in your name and this would have taken anywhere from 25 days to four months. Usually South Indian based companies transferred shares quickly and they used to send back certificate very quickly. North Indian based companies were very slow. Companies based in Delhi and Culcutta and eastern India were notorious for the delay. Please do not misunderstand me. No offence meant to anyone. I am telling my experience. If one's luck is bad, transfer deed and share certificate will be returned stating some reasons and usual reason is difference in the signature of transferer. You run from pillar to post to get the things done. It was a total agony. In the mean time, if any rights and bonus is anounced and record date is reaching fast, you can imagine the agony for getting the share transferred in one's name. Those being the days of CCI (Controller of Capital Issues), rights issues and IPO were at vastly discounted price. Usually share price jumped drastically after anouncement of rights or bonus. To add fuel to the fire, the share registrars/trnsfer agents used to go slow (very deliberately) in transferring the shares and dispatching certificates after announcement of record date for rights/bonus. That would diminish supply of stock further.
I must tell you how brokers made ugly sum of money during that period. If one did not place the order (either for buy or for sale) within the trading hall, then he will be robbed by the broker. Because, there is no way to know at what price the trade is executed. That invariably meant, if one brought any share, contract note will be issued for the highest price of the day for that stock and if one sold any share, contract note would be issued for the lowest price of the day. Imagine, what will be the situation if such a method is adopted especially keeping in mind about the fact that there were no circuit filters during those days and many shares used to flucuate wildly.