For the first time since Ajay Tyagi became its chairman earlier this year, market regulator SEBI has seen a reshuffle of key portfolios at the Executive Director (ED) level. The changes have taken place over the last couple of months. Tyagi’s team is a mix of bureaucrats or experts in the field of income tax and banking.

SEBI’s investigations department, which has the highest number of pending cases, has been handed over to newcomer Anand Baiwar, who joined the regulator as ED this month from the Indian Revenue Service. Baiwar will also handle the department that overseas operations related to foreign portfolio investors and custodians.

S Ravindran, the ED who was in charge of SEBI’s investigations department under former chairman UK Sinha, has been handed over the surveillance and information technology department. The surveillance department is comparatively less hectic and responsible for general observation of all segments of the securities market.

Another ED, Anantha Baruah, who earlier handled investment management, has been moved to the legal, enforcement and inquiry and adjudications department. These are other areas where SEBI has been lagging behind.

Tyagi keeps vigilance

Unlike the former chairman, Tyagi has kept the vigilance and internal inspection department with himself. The role of SEBI’s chief vigilance officer (CVO) is mainly to keep tabs on SEBI officials and their dealings and detect and punish corrupt and other malpractices within the organisation. The role of SEBI’s earlier CVO had come under the CBI’s scanner due to dealings with market intermediaries.

Tyagi has also split the corporate finance department, which consists of highly loaded portfolios, ensuring that too much power is not concentrated in the hands of a few.

The head of corporate finance directly dealt with top investment bankers and officials of listed companies. Matters relating to corporate governance, account audit standards, restructuring, equity issuance, IPOs, mergers and acquisitions and capital reduction all fall under the department.

Amarjeet Singh, executive assistant to Sinha, has now been asked to look after initial public offers and take over related matters under corporate finance. Nagendraa Parakh has been moved from surveillance to supervision of stock exchanges and market infrastructure companies, which are locked in an intense battle for market share.

The regulator is likely to witness heated action in investigation, legal as well as corporate finance due to governance issues at Infosys, investigations into dealings at the National Stock Exchange and a consent settlement plea by the exchange’s employees.

Sanjeev Kaushik, a 1992 batch IAS officer of the Kerala cadre and CMD of India Infrastructure Finance Company, will join SEBI as its third whole-time member (WTM). Two other WTMs, Madhabi Puri-Buch and G Mahalingam, are both banking industry experts.

SEBI, with a workforce of more than 600 people, had sought the removal of a provision in its service rules that required the regulator to hire 50 per cent of its EDs on deputation from outside the organisation

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