Four-Member Panel Set Up For Dse-Bse Merger

The Delhi Stock Exchange (DSE) board has constituted a four-member committee to iron out the modalities for the 100 per cent acquisition of the bourse by the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

Outgoing DSE president Sudhir Joshi is the convenor of the committee with bourse members I C Singhal, S K Uboveja and the yet-to-be elected new president as the other members.

According to sources, the DSE board, which met on October 27, also formally gave an "in-principle" approval to the consolidation process of the BSE and DSE. The BSE board has already given the go-ahead to the buyout plan in September.

The balance sheet of DSE, which was accepted by the board, has shown the corpus (Rs 6.02 crore) under the Customer Protection Fund (CPF) as part of the funds, reserves and surplus. The auditors have, however, qualified it in their report and said that the amount does not belong to the DSE or the members.

"It is not a fund but is in the nature of a liability and as such the reserves and surplus at the balance sheet date are stated higher and liabilities stated lower by Rs 6.02 crore," the auditors have said.

Sources said a dissent note was also put up by a member of the audit committee against the CPF corpus being shown under the funds, reserves and surplus head.

Public representative M K Chawla and the executive director P K Singhal also prevailed upon the members to show it as a current liability, they said.

Sudhir Joshi, president, DSE, said, "We have decided to transfer it to a trust soon. Some members, however, called for checking the legality of the issue. If it is in the form of a directive from the finance ministry, then we will transfer the corpus to the trust."

Four members Vijay Bhushan, Nemchand Jain, M L Goel and M K Gupta were elected to the board at the annual general meeting. Sources said that a new president for the exchange would be elected within the next two-three days. Rahul Malik and Vijay Bhushan are the main contenders for the position, they added.