Several key positions in Sebi likely to fall vacant by August

BS Srinivasalu Reddy

Mumbai, May 16: FEARS are being expressed on the possible vacuum in the top brass of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) with senior executive director in-charge of investigation and surveillance LK Singhvi set to leave Sebi on expiry of his deputation term on Friday (May 18) and another executive director heading administration CM Mehra scheduled to be repatriated to his parent cadre by August 1. Both are unlikely to get further extensions.

This will bring down the number of serving executive directors in Sebi from seven at the beginning of 2000 to two — Dharmishta Rawal and Pratip Kar — by August if urgent remedial measures are not taken, Sebi sources told The Financial Express on Wednesday.

Besides, Sebi board member Prof JR Varma has put in his papers and is expected to leave Sebi on June 22 for pursuing his academic career at IIM Ahmedabad.

The shortage of key staff is said to be arising out of Sebi overly relying on deputationists so far.

The earlier vacancies arising out of repatriation of senior executive director OP Gahrotra and executive director Ashok Kacker to their parent cadres Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Revenue Service (IRS) respectively, have not been filled till now.

The same is the case with the vacancy created on retirement of another executive director MD Patel, who was sharing the portfolio of secondary markets with executive director Pratip Kar.

Another senior official and northern regional office head Ms Anita Kapoor has been relieved from Sebi services on Tuesday (May 15). She was deputed to Sebi from Indian Revenue Service (IRS) in 1995, initially for three years and later followed by extentions.

Another IRS official, Salil Gupta, is tipped to succeed her.

The recent capital market scam has cast a shadow on the functioning and efficiency of Sebi.

There were some proposals for changing the human resources policy of the regulator in the past and management consultant Dr Uday Parikh was appointed to frame such regulations for staff in general, but no follow up action was taken.

Rules formed in 1988, before the regulator came into being in 1992, are still being used.

Out of the 14 officials associated with the regulator on deputation from other cadres or offices, it is left with only half of them now.

The number of deputationists are expected to further come down to five by August.

The seven officers on deputation to Sebi now include five from IRS — Mr Singhvi, Mr Mehra, Mr Gupta, RK Kakkar and Deepak Sancheti; while economic advisors MY Khan and M Thiripalraju are on deputation from Reserve Bank of India and Unit Trust of India respectively.

The other regulator, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), rarely relies on deputationists and has its own cadres for various functions. There was a feeling among Sebi officials that, though Sebi is relatively a young organisation and had to rely on deputationists, it should have developed its own skill base for various functions over the last eight years.

The northern regional office of Sebi has been headed by deputationists all along, first it was headed by Mr Rajiv Khalsi and later by Ms Anita Kapoor.