The BJP on Wednesday demanded a probe by a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) into the unprecedented crash in the Sensex, charging that the fall of 1,700 points was manipulated.
The main Opposition claimed that SEBI?s ?untimely? proposal to regulate participatory notes (PNs) was responsible for the bloodbath at the stock market.
The Congress, meanwhile, outrightly dismissed the demand and said that it has no relevance outside Parliament.
Pointing fingers at finance minister P Chidambram, the BJP said, it was incomprehensible why he waited for the market to nosedive by 1,700 points before coming out with a clarification that the government was not going to ban investment through participatory notes and other offshore derivative instruments. This delay led to a loss of over Rs four lakh crore to investors, the BJP maintained, adding that some manipulators and market players benefited from the crash.
??We want to know why only an intent was expressed by Sebi without any policy measures at a time when the market was so high. Why the finance minister was late in his clarification. We believe that only a JPC probe will find out the truth,?? BJP spokesperson Prakash Javdekar said.
The ?irresponsible? conduct of the government and ?unwarranted? comments by Sebi has led to the crash and an investigation was necessary, Javedkar said adding that the extreme volatility in the capital market also pointed towards existence of a nexus between various persons and institutions.
Congress said that such a demand could be made only on the floor of the Houses of Parliament.
??The demand for a JPC probe is not relevant outside Parliament,?? Congress spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said, when asked by reporters to comment on the demand. Such issues should be raised in Parliament and not outside the House, he said.
Defending the finance minister, Ahmed said, it was his prompt intervention that the market recovered during intra-day trade. The Congress spokesman also recalled that Chidambram had himself often expressed his surprise over the phenomenal rise in the market’s sensitive index.
