The market regulator claims it does not have information on surveillance, inspection and prosecution. This is an unbelievable admission since it spends over Rs50 crore of taxpayers’ money
In response to Moneylife’s Right to Information (RTI) appeal, the Indian capital market watchdog, Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has made a surprising admission: it 
does not have information pertaining to its surveillance, inspection and prosecution activities!
We had filed an RTI on how its state-of-the-art surveillance systems, the Integrated Market Surveillance System (IMSS) and Data Warehousing Business Intelligence System (DWBIS) fared by asking the following simple questions:
The PIO (public information officer) at SEBI, however, denied the information. The PIO on 7 May 2013, vide CPIO/AKS/AJ/325-2013/10853, stated “It is informed that the information sought by you is not available with the concerned department of SEBI.” The entire story can be accessed here.
We then filed our first appeal before the First Appellate Authority (FAA) at SEBI. In the appeal, we requested the FAA to direct the PIO to forward the RTI application to the concerned department that has the information. The FAA, however, rejected the first appeal.
Vide its order AAO/1691/RTI/07/2013, dated 5 July 2013, S Raman, the FAA stated: “I do not find any reason to disbelieve the response provided by the respondent (SEBI). In this context, I note that the Supreme Court of India in the matter of Central Board of Secondary Education & Anr Vs Aditya Bandopadhyay & Ors (Judgement dated 9 August 2011), had held that: ‘The RTI Act provides access to all information that is available and existing. But where the information sought is not a part of the record of a public authority, and where such information is not required to be maintained under any law or the rules of regulations of the public authority, the Act does not cast an obligation upon the public authority, to collect or collate such non-available information and then furnish it to an applicant.’ In view of these observations, I find that the respondent cannot be obliged to provide the information sought by the appellant through the instant query.”
It is pertinent to note that the data related to surveillance is clearly disclosed in SEBI’s annual reports. However, SEBI has published only the aggregate data but not the specific information which we had specifically asked for. The annual report does not mention how many cases were detected by the IMSS and DWBIS systems, respectively, for which it has spent so much taxpayers’ money. Why it has not disclosed this information remains a mystery.
SEBI has spent so much money on beefing up its surveillance mechanisms. It has 48 people on staff as of 31 March 2013, and has so far spent collectively over Rs50 crore of taxpayers’ money, on the state-of-the-art IMSS and DWBIS. It has also employed Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to take care of its DWBIS. Yet, there are continued cases of brazen manipulation, which is covered in every issue of Moneylife, under the ‘Unquoted’ section. You can check our unquoted section online here. Moneylife even had an exclusive cover story on the same which can be accessed here.
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sathyacumaran
On the contrary satyacumaran in his exhaustive mails has made a very convincing case.
That SEBI PIO has more to hide than disclose is apparent from their responses. In fact he failed to face the Money Life Team that sought a RTI Sec.4 on-site inspection, amply proves it!
On the contrary satyacumaran in his exhaustive mails has made a very convincing case.
That SEBI PIO has more to hide than disclose is apparent from their responses. In fact he failed to face the Money Life Team that sought a RTI Sec.4 on-site inspection, amply proves it!
But I wanted to know where is the solution in such cases.How can smart and inttelligent ppl contribute instead of commenting onlne.
Can @Moneylife offer us opportunity to do something real instead of cribbing online.Cribbing is good if it reach to masses.
You must join our efforts -- we have done more than other NGOs in 3 years of our existence. We can do more if we have serious volunteers and resources.
Why dont you come and volunteer at least? Most people who offered to volunteer, want to do seminars .... NOBODY wants to help us with REAL WORK. Drafting memorandum, out reach, getting new members, helping raise resources etc. That is the SLOG work that holds people back unless an entity has LOADED godfathers who offer support.
A clean, public spirited organisation can ONLY do more if people commit their time for it. That is how you can stop CRIBBING and JOIN us to do something . check http://foundation.moneylife.in
We would love to hear from you. You can write to us at [email protected] or to Debashis Basu at [email protected]
now only survelliance department had come out that they have not done their job in short we would prove that whole sebi nse bse had failed to discharge their duty this show how indian administration is functioning that to in the financial service sector where our Primeminister is very great economist and Finance Minister is Haward University MBA apart barrat Law his department itself is in such and bad shape we need not say other department as whole indian administration itself need flushing where honesty and integrity and accountability should be teached for which the rules and punishment should be severe and morale values should taught to govt employees and code of conduct should be implemented sorry to mention such strict and comment but this i am writing because i could vent my feelings and this would reach the ears of officials and chairman of sebi nse bse where from this platform i could get justice
sathyacumaran
sathya cumaran
Thanks,
G. C. Mathur
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
shashi kumar
Avarjeet Singh
[email protected],
debashis
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected] for which no action still been taken by the SEBI. this is about the lapses of SEBI's own surveillances and i have specifically mentioned it in the above mail which can be proved. Even then, it is made by the AA of sebi that there is no information available. this a total callousness. i have to take up this with sebi.
sathya cumaran
sathyacumaran