Congress questions Sebi over FPI disclosure norms

A day after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) indicated that it may enforce additional disclosure norms for high-risk Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs), the Congress has claimed that the regulator is now attempting to tighten the very rules it was "forced to dilute" in 2018.

Congress claimed Sebi's latest consultation document proposing additional disclosure norms for high-risk FPIs was due to the critical observations in the report submitted by the SC-appointed experts committee (on the Adani-Hindenburg issue) about the market regulator "weakening" and "diluting" such rules during 2017-18 period. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said Sebi, while "bringing back" those rules, should do it with "retrospective effect" and alleged the market regulator's decision to "dilute" the rules then had affected transparent disclosure of identity of "the real investors" who invested about "₹2,0000 crore in the Adani Group shares".