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Standardised rules for bourses needed: JPC

Priya Ganapati in Bombay

The Joint Parliamentry Committee probing the recent capital markets scam has said that the rules and bylaws of the stock exchanges need to be standardised to make them transparent even as the Securities and Exchange Board of India sought additional powers to regulate markets more effectively.

"Committee members are worried about the protection of investors and have emphasised the need for standardisation and ensure that the system does not lent itself to manipulation," JPC chairman P M Tripathi said.

In its presentation before the JPC, Sebi has asked for additional powers for better regulation.

The 24-member JPC team has been in Bombay since the last two days and has been speaking to RBI, NSE, BSE and Sebi officials.

Asked if the committee would suggest extra powers to Sebi, the JPC chairman said that this could be done only after studying the details of the present scam.

The JPC earlier visited the Bombay Stock Exchange, where the bourse officials made a presentation on its working and explained the functioning of its surveillance department, he said.

He said that the JPC members had raised queries on small investors' protection and broker-investor relations.

The JPC also met with members of the investor grievances forum who suggested that the US-64 scheme be brought under the purview of Sebi.

Members of the forum who met with the JPC also suggested that the committee make its recommendations such that the guilty are punished quickly and effectively.

Tripathi declined to comment on the working of the surveillance department of the JPC, which was in the eye of the recent storm at the stock markets.

"Without speaking to the officials involved, I do not want to say anything about the department just based on my visit there today," he said.

Terming the appearance of BSE and Sebi before the JPC today as a 'technical briefing' for the committee members, Tripathi said that with the visit to Bombay JPC had finished its survey of all the parties concerned with the recent scam.

The next step of the JPC would be to examine witness and for this the JPC would call upon RBI, Sebi and BSE officials to depose before it.

"We also plan to call individuals as witnesses before the committee but the list is a dynamic one so nothing has been fixed yet, " Tripathi said.

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