Parliamentary panel seeks Economic Affairs Secretary's clarifications on Securities Market Code Bill

New Delhi [India], July 17 (ANI): The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance called the Economic Affairs Secretary to seek clarifications on the proposed Securities Market Code Bill as it works to finalise its draft report, with 26 residual clauses yet to be incorporated before the panel submits its recommendations to Parliament during the first week of the upcoming Monsoon Session.
Speaking to ANI after the committee meeting, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance Chairman Bhartruhari Mahtab said the panel had invited the Economic Affairs Secretary to explain the pending provisions of the proposed legislation.
"There were certain residual clauses which could not be approved the other day, the last meeting that we had, which covered around 26 clauses. That's why we had called the Economic Affairs Secretary and she came and explained to us all the residual issues that were pending. We had actually scheduled it today," Mahtab told ANI.
The committee discussed the draft report during Friday's meeting but deferred its adoption until the remaining clauses are incorporated.
"We discussed the draft agenda today, but we did not approve it because the issues of around 26 clauses which were left earlier, have to be incorporated in the draft. Those clauses will be added into our draft report and hopefully next week when we will be meeting on Tuesday we will be adopting that report," Mahtab said.
Mahtab said the committee intends to submit its report to Parliament by the end of the first week of the Monsoon Session.
"So our target is by the first week of the monsoon session for submission," he said.
Highlighting the scale of the committee's review, Mahtab said the proposed Securities Market Code Bill underwent extensive scrutiny, with stakeholders submitting around 1,000 suggestions on its 157 clauses.
"We had given around 1000 suggestions, out of which more than 85 have been accepted by the government," he said. "That's a very good number and out of 157 clauses of this bill, we had suggested around some thousand changes and 85 of them have been accepted."
He clarified that the suggestions were received from a wide range of stakeholders consulted by the committee rather than being recommendations made solely by its members.
"When I say 1,000 suggestions were given to them, it was not given by the committee itself. The number of stakeholders that we interacted with, they had given a number of suggestions....We interacted with RBI, with SEBI and with a number of chartered accountants and those who deal with Stock Exchanges; Even with investors and banks," Mahtab said.
According to the committee chairman, the parliamentary review helped identify several gaps in the original draft, leading to significant revisions.
"Lot of changes have taken place from the previous version and I can tell you aside is that number of officers have stated privately that they had conceived the bill fool-proof but the issues that were brought up by honorable members in the committee actually showed that number of issues also have been left out," he said. "So they have been incorporated, that's why more than 85 suggestions have been accepted by the committee." (ANI)