MUMBAI: Outgoing Sebi chief U K Sinha said on Monday that while there have been complaints from several quarters about the manner in which the regulator is functioning, it has been harsh only with those threatening the integrity of the capital markets.
Addressing the media on Monday, he said that the regulator’s primary job was to protect the interest of investors. Sebi had tried its best to ensure uniform treatment for everyone and had worked hard on cleansing the market, he said.
“I have read comments and I am aware that there are comments that Sebi has been very harsh in this period. Well, we have been. I don’t think we will feel shy about saying that,” he stated, adding, “All potential instruments of manipulation, including defunct regional stock exchanges, have been closed down. We have also been able to delist 345 listed companies and more than 2,000 companies have been brought to the dissemination board. So the idea is that, if we see that there is some entity which could be a potential threat to the integrity of the market, we have acted very hard on it.”
In addition, 19 regional stock exchanges were given an exit.
“We obviously we met with resistance and legal challenges, however, Sebi was able to win all these cases. The institutions where no trading was taking place were potential instruments for manipulations in the market.”
Senior IAS officer Ajay Tyagi will take charge of Sinha’s post on the completion of his six-year term on March 1, 2017.