Does anyone know?
 

Does anyone know if the large search engines penalize for using meta auto-refresh tag?

If you're referring to loading the page that the surfer clicks on, then loading an entirely different page, then in theory, yes they do.

In practice, it happens a lot, but if you get caught tricking the surfer like that, you can kiss that domain goodbye, at least as far as the SE that catches you goes. :(