The former Union minister, who claimed democracy was in jeopardy, stated on Sunday that the current administration was applying different standards to the two incidents.

Safeguarding the essence of the Indian Constitution is imperative. It is essential that all three of our democratic pillars—the legislative, executive, and judicial—maintain their strength. They embody the essence of parliamentary democracy in addition to its physical structure. However, this is not occurring. “Why is the current administration at the Centre treating TMC’s Mahua Moitra and BJP’s Ramesh Bidhuri differently, or applying double standards?” he asked at an event.

Moitra was called before the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee on the allegation that, in exchange for costly gifts and other inducements, she had disclosed the login credentials of her official account to businessman Darshan Hiranandani. On the basis of “evidence” provided by Moitra’s erstwhile friend Jai Anant Dehadrai, BJP member Nishikant Dubey has claimed that the businessman used her account to submit his own questions to Parliament regarding the Adani Group.

On November 2, Moitra appeared before the panel; she subsequently stormed out, alleging that Vinod Sonkar, the panel’s chairman, had posed her unethical queries. Sonkar, conversely, asserted that she addressed him with unparliamentary language. During the panel discussion, she avowed no culpability.

Strong criticism was directed at Bidhuri, a member of the BJP from South Delhi, for his “derogatory” remarks made against Ali in the Lok Sabha.

While Bidhuri was campaigning for the BJP, Moitra was compelled to appeal before the panel, according to Aiyar.

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“I must say that electorates will have to remain cautious and alert in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls… they must cast their votes in the 2024 polls after proper thought,” according to PTI.

Moitra had requested that she be summoned by the panel after November 5. In contrast, she was instructed by the tribunal to appear on November 2.

The post ‘Centre’s double standards’: Congress leader on Mahua Moitra, Bidhuri appeared first on Republic Aeon.

“No additional comments…In regard to this matter, the TMC will not provide any commentary… “Not the TMC party, but the related person may respond to this question,” Kunal Ghosh, the state general secretary of the TMC party, told the ANI news agency.

PTI was told by another senior TMC politician who declined to provide their name that the party does not want to get involved in a scandal and “will be maintaining distance from it.”

#WATCH | West Bengal | Allegations of bribery against TMC MP Mahua Moitra: TMC State General Secretary Kunal Ghosh says, "…No comments…Regarding this issue, the TMC will not say anything… The related person may answer this, not the TMC party…" pic.twitter.com/uIqFZSeDE1

— ANI (@ANI) October 21, 2023

Moitra, who is now serving as a member of Parliament for the constituency of Krishnanagar in West Bengal, is being accused of receiving bribes from the business magnate Darshan Hiranandani in the form of cash and luxury gifts in exchange for asking questions in the legislature that are critical of the Adani Group.

Earlier in the week, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party named Nishikant Dubey made significant accusations against Moitra. He based his accusations on a letter written by a lawyer named Jai Anant Dehadrai, which stated that Moitra, a politician for the TMC, had gotten favors from Hiranandani in exchange for asking issues in the House of Representatives. Moitra initiated legal action against them in the Delhi High Court for the crime of defamation.

Hiranandani supported the charges that were brought against Moitra in an affidavit that was signed. The industrialist has admitted to having provided Moitea with material that she might use as a foundation for her questioning, and she has also admitted that she obtained information about this matter from other people.

The industrialist stated in his statement that he gave Moitra “expensive luxury items” and that he paid for the “renovation of her official bungalow.” He also claimed that Moitra gave him her username and password for Parliament so that he could “post the questions directly on her behalf.”

The complaint that was filed by Nishikant Dubey has been sent to the Ethics Committee of Parliament by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Om Birla.

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The head of the Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha, Vinod Sonkar, stated that he had obtained the affidavit that was sworn in from Hiranandani. The Member of Parliament for the TMC has cast doubt on the veracity of Hiranandani’s affidavit by claiming that it was “drafted by the PMO” and that he was coerced into signing it by being “threatened” with the “total shut down” of his family’s companies. This allegation raises issues about the reliability of Hiranandani’s statement.

The post TMC: ‘No comments’ on Mahua Moitra ‘bribe for questions’ claims appeared first on Republic Aeon.

The TMC representative’s comments were in response to Rahul’s assertion on Wednesday that the ruling party in West Bengal was participating in the Meghalaya assembly elections to ‘assist’ the BJP win.

Moitra spoke at a public rally on Thursday in support of the TMC candidate from North Shillong, Elgiva Gwyneth Rynjah “If the Congress had been able to defeat the BJP, we would not be required (to contest the assembly polls). However, since the Congress failed to capture the state, we were compelled to provide the people with an alternative. The TMC is the only viable alternative to the BJP.”

“Are we to remain idly by as the BJP wins yet another national election while the Congress continues to lose state after state?” she asked.
Moitra urged female electors to support the party’s North Shillong candidate “We have the ability (to make a change). Allow all male ballots to be divided. If all women vote for Elgiva, we (North Shillong) will triumph.”

The TMC Member of Parliament (MP) further stated that the party’s manifesto for the upcoming assembly elections was composed and published by the party’s North Shillong candidate herself, according to an official release issued by the party.

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In addition, the release states that the TMC has made a commitment in its manifesto to work towards the emancipation of women and to construct a working women’s hostel, a women’s police station, and women’s self-help organisations if they are elected to power.

The post ‘TMC only alternative to BJP’: Mahua Moitra hits back at Rahul Gandhi appeared first on Republic Aeon.

SEBI Has Been Embarrassed Several Times by Overturned Decisions

The market regulator has had a difficult couple of weeks as a result of the close examination of its sluggish investigations, inadequate oversight, and legally questionable or improperly justified directives from the previous decade or more.

Mahua Moitra, a Trinamool Congress member of parliament (MP), shouted in the chamber, “Why has SEBI been a quiet operator?” The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) appears to have studiously ignored Moitra’s germane queries concerning the Adani group and the astounding rise in the stock prices of all its firms over the previous two years. The Trinamool MP correctly questioned how the regulator permitted Adani Enterprises Ltd. to make a massive follow-on public offer (FPO) of Rs 20,000 crore despite the fact that an investigation was ongoing (the Adani group withdrew the issue the day after a “managed” subscription) and how the group could assert that there was no active investigation against it.

The government stated in a written response to a question in the parliament in July 2021 that SEBI was looking into whether or not any Adani group firms were complying with SEBI standards. In addition, the DRI (department of revenue intelligence) is looking into some Adani Group firms under the legislation it oversees.

This important topic is not addressed in SEBI’s lacklustre press release from last Saturday, which came after all Adani group equities suffered precipitous declines as a result of the publication of a negative report by US-based Hindenburg Research. In actuality, SEBI has steadfastly disregarded the price run-up in Adani Enterprises since 2004, when the stock first started to skyrocket and soared 3,000% over the next four years!

Keep in mind that SEBI is one of the most powerful regulators in existence today, having the ability to conduct searches, seizures, raids, and arrests. For real-time detection of shady trading behaviour and price manipulation, it also includes an expensive surveillance system. What justifies the regulator’s apathy throughout various political systems?

There is an easy solution. In the last two decades, SEBI has either followed the financial ministry’s directives (particularly during the United Progressive Alliance’s second term) or its operations have escaped political or public scrutiny. Aside from the Adani controversy, let’s examine how SEBI handled the Satyam incident and the co-location (colo) problem at the National Stock Exchange (NSE), two of the largest scandals in the previous 20 years.

The NSE’s colo fraud

The SEBI’s shameful failure to defend its conclusions in such a serious incident casts India in a negative image given that NSE is the largest derivatives exchange in the world. Here is what the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT), which essentially overturned SEBI’s earlier ruling requiring NSE to forfeit Rs. 625 crore with interest on January 23, 2023, said (and slashed the payment down to Rs 100 crore).

In line 255 of the order, it states:

“Before we draw a conclusion, we must note that SEBI should have been proactive and should have handled the inquiry properly when substantial complaints were made against a first level regulator, namely the NSE. We discover that SEBI had taken a cautious stance and was really covering up the alleged wrongdoings of NSE. Only after inquiries were made on the parliament’s floor did SEBI become alert and launch a probe. The investigation’s scope was constrained, and it was carried out by another agency under Section 11C rather than under Section 11(4). In our opinion, SEBI should have launched an investigation or inquiry itself given the seriousness of the alleged accusations rather than handing it off to NSE. The manner in which SEBI instructed NSE to undertake an inquiry against itself is peculiar and illogical. It is obvious that a careless strategy was used.

SAT also brought out the fact that the whole-time member (WTM), the second-highest ranking official at SEBI, reached two completely different conclusions on the identical matter on the very same day! One order involved NSE, and the WTM determined that early log-in, which was at the centre of the colo controversy, did not benefit any brokers, hence assisting the Exchange. The WTM came to the conclusion that an advantage was gained by the company through an early log-in in the second order against brokerage OPG Securities that same day. According to SAT, which is right, “It is not profitable to weed out all the inconsistencies but it is sufficient to indicate that the same Officer who has granted the orders on the same day cannot make different analyses on the same subject or problem.”

Is this an instance of bad judgement, carelessness, or lack of mental effort? Or even worse, an effort to give NSE “a protective cover” and make sure the entire decision is overturned on appeal? If the answer is yes, the goal has been successfully met.

Did the WTM, who received harsh criticism from SAT, suffer any repercussions? Definitely none! He was assigned to lead a group on bettering market infrastructure institutions (MIIs) after serving his SEBI term in its whole, and more recently, the government named him to the board of the troubled Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS)!

Ironic, isn’t it, that while allegations against a corporate group can shake up the government (and rightfully so), bad regulatory orders that are routinely overturned on appeal go unnoticed, not even by the standing committee of parliament, which includes representatives from all opposition parties.

Media sources state that SEBI intends to challenge the unfairly watered-down SAT ruling in the NSE colo case. Why would the appeal result in a different judgement given SEBI’s own findings were insufficient and the original order was badly written with a broad exoneration and no discernible justification? Legal professionals predict that SEBI will most likely lose the appeal or that the ruling will be further watered down. It may be the appeal’s intended purpose, one could speculate.

Satyam Order

Let’s examine a second surprising decision that humiliated SEBI in an appeal. Recall the January 2009 Satyam Computer scam, which cost Rs 9,000 crore? What case could be more clear-cut than one in which B. Ramalinga Raju, the chairman of Satyam, admits to manipulating the business’s finances for years? But the punishment portion has continued for fifteen years. SAT disregarded two SEBI “revised instructions” from October and November 2018 earlier this week and instructed the WTM to reexamine the situation!

It requested that the WTM take the intrinsic worth into account while determining the illegal gain. “The WTM will determine the illegal gain, if any, separately for each appellant. The WTM will take the matter under consideration. The WTM will reexamine the question of the period of restraining order for each appellant. The WTM will reevaluate the share pledge problem.

Here, the situation was as follows. In 2014, SEBI banned ten firms from the market and demanded that they repay more than Rs. 1,800 crore. SEBI was requested to rethink its decision after being criticised. SEBI issued two orders in 2018 against Satyam Computers’ promoters and top executives. In essence, the Satyam promoter family members B. Suryanarayana Raju, B. Rama Raju, and B. Ramalinga Raju had been barred from entering the securities market for 14 years by SEBI’s WTM. In addition, SEBI increased the amount of the disgorgement to Rs 813 crore and demanded that the individuals and entities listed above as well as SRSR Holdings pay the amount along with 12% annual interest (calculated as of January 2009) for accusations of insider trading and manipulation.

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In returning the matter to SEBI, SAT found that its officer had taken an incorrect approach to it and that the order does not justify using the magic number of 14 years for the implementation of punitive limitations. The disgorgement order and the interest levied were likewise annulled by SAT.

The SAT rulings in the Satyam and NSE colo cases appear to indicate a feeble inquiry, a lack of legal knowledge, or an inability to provide speaking instructions that withstand the scrutiny of several appeals. When a regulator performs so poorly in huge scandals that are broadcast to the entire world, it frequently embarrasses SEBI and casts a very negative light on a nation that is trying to become a superpower. Strangely, though, nobody believes that this harms the country or constitutes an assault on India’s pride. This situation at one of our top regulatory agencies makes us delighted.

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