Orissa Secy For Bhubaneswar Bourse Supersession

Orissa finance secretary Ajit Tripathy has urged Securities Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to supersede the management council of Bhubaneswar stock exchange in the wake of reports of financial bungling to the tune of over Rs 1 crore in the bourse.

Tripathy, who is also the nominee of Sebi in the exchange council, has written a separate letter to the director, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to launch a probe into the scam that has threatened the very future of the bourse.

The finance secretary in his letter to the Sebi chairman D R Mehta has observed that the present management council of the bourse was unable to discharge its responsibilities leading to such irregularities and consequent adeverse publicity in the media. Hence, the coucil should be superseded by Sebi, he felt.

Tripathy has also written a letter to the state home secretary T K Mishra asking him to take necessary steps to hand over the stock exchange case to the CBI in the interest of the state's investors.

In another development, the Directorate of Income Tax has started a probe into the irregularities perpetuated by a group of exchange officials and brokers to swindle the funds of the members' welfare trust.

The I-T officials who conducted a physical survey of the business premises of the exchange on Tuesday have taken copies of the books of account of the bourse and the trust for investigation purposes.

The scam mainly pertains to advance of Rs 99 lakh loan to the vice-president of the bourse, Babulal Sharma, by the members' welfare trust of the exchange in "utter violation of the provision of the trust deed".

The investigators are probing into the angle whether money sanctioned to Sharma has actually been appropriated by him or a couple of other brokers for whom he was acting as the front.

Sharma had claimed that he was innocent and the money sanctioned to him had actually flown to the accounts of a couple of other brokers.

"The very fact that I was granted loan in violation of the rules proves that there were vested interests keen to sanction me loan," he had told Business Standard.

He asserted that he was ready to fight his case and reveal everything at "the appropriate time".