In January, the Central Information Commission directed the market regulator to upload from April onwards information about PMS schemes on its website. Despite assurance from SEBI to the CIC, it has not uploaded any data on PMS for which Moneylife has been fighting a long battle
Market regulator Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has refused to share information on portfolio management services (PMS) in the public domain as the deadline to disclose the same by April has passed by. Despite an order from the Central Information Commission (CIC) and subsequent assurance, the market regulator has not yet uploaded any data on PMS on its website. After fighting with SEBI for over a year, the CIC had ruled in favour of Moneylife and directed the market regulator to publish the data related with PMS on its portal.
Our email and SMS to SEBI officials asking about the compliance to the CIC order has remained unanswered till writing this report.
After the order from Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) Satyananda Mishra, issued after a hearing conducted on 17 January 2012, SEBI wrote to Moneylife assuring compliance with the order. In a letter on 18 February 2013, SEBI stated, “The Information Technology Department of SEBI is devising a suitable mechanism/link so that the monthly report received from the portfolio managers for the month of April 2013 and onwards may be transferred to the SEBI website. Accordingly, efforts are being made to make available the monthly report of the portfolio manager on the SEBI website for the month of April 2013 and onwards.”
Moneylife wrote an email to SEBI and requested for the link. Nevertheless, so far there is no response from the market regulator.
Earlier, Moneylife had won a hard fought case, which lasted more than a year, against SEBI to obtain details and performance of all the PMS schemes. In its 2nd RTI appeal hearing held on 17 January 2013, the CIC had ordered SEBI to disclose all the details of PMS schemes and upload the same on the website from April onwards.
This order not only represents a big victory for Indian investors and comes at the end of a long battle by Moneylife to ask the regulator to make PMS schemes more transparent. For the past three years, Moneylife has also helped several investors recover funds, wrongly deducted by PMS. The wrongful losses have extended from a few lakh rupees to as much as Rs1 crore.
The CIC’s order said, “We have carefully considered the facts of the case and the submissions made before us. It is an admitted fact that the desired information is available with SEBI, if not on an annual basis, at least on a monthly basis. Since this information is received electronically, it’s publication through the website would not be a difficult task. By publishing such information about all Portfolio Management Services (PMS) regulated by it, SEBI would serve two objectives. One, help the investing public to access all information at one place and not have to visit 50 different websites and, two, eliminate the need for seeking such information under RTI, from time to time”.
A more detailed report on how Moneylife had won the case can be read over here: Power of RTI: CIC directs SEBI to disclose all information related to PMS.
Last year, SEBI had stonewalled our initial RTI application for disclosure of PMS schemes, when it cited under the pretense of “fiduciary relationship” as the sole reason for not providing information. The story can be read here: SEBI misrepresents public information on PMS as fiduciary; offers mindless response to simple RTI query.
Horror stories of past PMS looting investors prompted us to file an RTI against SEBI to disclose information of such schemes, in order to make it the system more transparent. You can find some alarming cases Moneylife had covered, in detail, over here:
Unless information pertaining to PMS is put up, investors will continue to find it difficult to decide which PMS to invest in and make informed decision. Moreover, without such information, gullible investors will be hardsold such poor PMS schemes, which will lead to capital erosion as evidenced by the stories written above.
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This means access to other articles (outside the subscription period) are not included.
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But, SEBI has bosses in Delhi under whose directions the data is not put up as directed by CIC.
Moneylife deserves full complements for taking lot of pains and pursue the cause of the investing public.
Once this data is available to the general public,almost noone wl go for PMS,the record wl be so disastrous.
We are awaiting for a verdict of Supreme court Case on making the Exchanges(NSE/BSE) under RTI Act