Securities tribunal set to be multi-member body

NEW DELHI: The Securities Appellate Tribunal is finally set to be converted into a multi-member body. The government has appointed the former Director General of Foreign Trade, Lakhanpal and the former CMD of Allahabad Bank, B Samal as members of the tribunal.
The appellate tribunal will be headed by either a retired chief justice of a high court or a retired judge of the Supreme Court.
The SAT hears all appeals against orders issued by the capital markets regulator Sebi and also now the newly set up Central Listing Authority (CLA).
A former chief justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court is expected to head the reconstituted SAT. The SAT is now a single member tribunal represented by Mr C Achutan who has completed his term. He has stayed on following instructions from the government to function until the new multi-member body is in place.
Besides the Sebi chairman who had made out a case to the government to speedily convert SAT into a multi-member body, the Joint Parliamentary Committee had also echoed a similar view in its report on the 2001 securities scam. Several orders passed by Securities and Exchange Board of India including in several high-profile cases had been set aside by the single member SAT, the recent one being the reversal of a Sebi order in the Herbertsons case.
Although Sebi had ordered that Kishore Chabbria should divest his holdings in the company, the SAT ruled that the Chabbrias should make a public offer within three months for 20 % of the equity of Herbertsons.
The SAT was set up in 1999 after the finance ministry decided to transfer the appellate functions from the government. From 1992 to 1998-99, appeals against all orders issued by Sebi were heard by the appellate authority consisting of two senior ministry officials.