8:22 AM
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BOTH AGARWAL AND SRIDHAR HAVE BEEN SELECTED
Decks have been cleared for the appointment of senior
Revenue Department official Rajeev Agarwal as a whole-time member of the
Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).
A senior finance ministry official told Business Standard
that the Appointment Committee of Cabinet (ACC) had cleared Agarwal’s
appointment and the orders would be notified soon.
He added that Agarwal, a 1983batch Indian Revenue
Services (IRS) officer, would have to resign from the Revenue Department to
join Sebi as a whole-time member.
“It was decided that no candidate would be allowed to
take up a Sebi member’s job on deputation basis. Some candidates were not
considered during interviews because they did not want to resign from their
services,” said the official.
He pointed out that the process of Agarwal’s resignation
from the Revenue Department and his joining Sebi was expected to take about a
month’s time.
A sub-committee headed by Sebi Chairman U K Sinha had
recommended Agarwal’s and former Central Bank of India chairman S Sridhar’s
names to fill the vacancies created on the regulator’s board after the
retirement of M S Sahoo and K M Abraham in July.
Subsequently, the two names had been sent to ACC for its
final approval. The finance ministry official added that the Central Vigilance
Commission was yet to give clearance to Sridhar.
The CVC go-ahead in Sridhar’s case is critical because he
was at the helm of affairs at Central Bank of India, the official banker for
the Commonwealth Games held in the capital last year. The bank and Sridhar had
been named in the V KShunglu Committee report over alleged irregularities in the
Games.
The official said there were some differences between CVC
and the finance ministry on the issue but the matter was expected to be
resolved soon. He added that both Agarwal and Sridhar had been selected to be
wholetime members of Sebi because of their wide experience in handling
regulatory matters.
Before moving to Central Bank, Sridhar was the chairman
and managing director of National Housing Bank — the regulator and refinance
agency for mortgage players.
Agarwal has served as a member of the Forward Markets
Commission (FMC) — the regulator for the commodity futures business. He spent
five-and-a-half years at FMC, where his main job was to set the ground rules
for new exchanges and create awareness about commodity futures. He also has the
experience of tax-related cases pertaining to capital market investigations.
With
Sinha as chairman and existing board member Prashant Saran, who has been there
for a while now, the appointments of Agarwal and Sridhar will complete the
formation of a new-look Sebi team