The Two Toughest Challenges Former SEBI Chairman UK Sinha Faced In His 6-Year Term: Exclusive

Five PILs were filed against an individual, that too against his appointment, and he doesn’t get appointed himself. Somebody follows a system and appoints him and he is left to defend himself on his own. This is unprecedented. It has happened that may be one PIL has been filed against somebody, against me five PILs were filed. It might not appear very interesting to you, but imagine any individual who is facing five PILs.

If you care to read the last two pages of that order then you’ll discover what glowing things the Supreme Court has said about SEBI. I don’t need any endorsement from anybody, the Supreme Court’s order says that during Mr. Sinha’s time lot of action has been taken against some of the largest corporates in the country and it is no surprise that some of them might be behind it.

It has created a situation where SEBI officials are feeling very demoralised. If you pass a quasi-judicial order, there is a given path, there is an appeal mechanism to the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT), from there you can go to the Supreme Court. But why you have passed an order, why you have imposed a particular penalty, that’s being agitated. And the good thing is or the funny thing is that it has been agitated at the appellate level and it has been shot down, people have said that the order passed by SEBI is right. In spite of that, petition after petition, so by mere persistence, people have been filing petitions to various agencies and the agencies have been taking it up from a criminal investigation point of view. I hope the media recognise the damage that this will do to the sanctity of the Indian market and the regulation of the Indian market. Because if these things continue then regulatory officials will find it very difficult to take any decision.