Sebi meet on July 28 to have new members

The next time the board of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) meets, there could be fresh faces occupying the chairs meant for whole-time members. At least one new member is expected to come on board when it meets on July 28 to discuss key issues, including the proposed Takeover Code.

Sebi wholetime members M S Sahoo and K M Abraham retired in July in a span of one week. While Sahoo’s three-year tenure ended on July 13, Abraham will bid adieu tomorrow. Reports, meanwhile, suggest the ministry of finance has already zeroed on the successors to the two outgoing members.

Interestingly, the board meet has already been postponed twice or else the two members would have got another occasion to participate in the board deliberations that could also lead to an important development in the sensitive issue of National Securities Depository Ltd.

“It is always better to have a meeting with the new members on board, so they also get a direction of sorts,” said a person familiar with the development. “There is a feeling that at least one of the members will be able to join in the next few days,” he added.

The board meet was first scheduled on June 27, only to be postponed to June 30. It was again postponed as chairman U K Sinha had to leave for a US tour with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and other regulatory chiefs. This week, too, the chairman has been away for a few days on an official overseas trip.

According to reports, S Sridhar, former chairman and managing director of Central Bank of India and Rajiv Agarwal from the Mumbai income tax department, have been short-listed by the selection panel for the two WTM posts at Sebi.

The two are believed to have been selected after interviewing 11 of the nearly 50 candidates who had applied for the post.

The two new members will have their plates full once they assume responsibilities at Sebi, as Sahoo and Abraham shared some of the most important departments.

Sahoo was in charge of legal affairs, enforcement and market intermediaries supervision and regulation. Abraham handled investigations, integrated surveillance and market regulation. The third whole-time member, Prashant Saran, looks after mutual funds, foreign institutional investors and collective investment schemes, among other things.

Apart from the takeover code and NSDL, the board is expected to discuss the levy of transaction costs in mutual fund transactions. On NSDL, the regulator has time until August to give its final decision to the Supreme Court.