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Mittee
Mittee
1. Introduction
The Government had announced its proposal to corporatise the stock exchanges by which
ownership, management and trading rights would be segregated from each other and
legislative changes, if required, would be proposed accordingly to give effect to the
corporatisation of stock exchanges. The Finance Minister has also emphasized in his
Budget Speech for the year 2002-03 that this process would be completed during the
course of the year to implement the decision to separate ownership, management and
operation of the stock exchanges.
Corporatisation and demutualisation of stock exchanges are complex subjects and involve
a number of legal, accounting, Companies Act and tax issues. These issues would need
careful examination, before a clear roadmap could be prepared to take this process
forward. SEBI felt that it would be desirable to appoint a Group comprising of eminent
personalities, in fields of law, accountancy, finance, company law affairs and taxation to
advise SEBI on this matter and to recommend the steps that need to be taken to implement
the announcement of the Finance Minister.
Accordingly, SEBI, by order of Chairman, Shri G N Bajpai has constituted a Group under
the Chairmanship of Justice M. H. Kania, former Chief Justice of India with the following
members:
i. Justice M. N. Chandurkar – former Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court and the
Madras High Court.
ii. Shri Y. H. Malegam, Chartered Accountant and Managing Partner, S.B. Billimoria &
Co.
iii. Shri Hemendra Kothari, Chairman, DSP Merrill Lynch and former President of BSE.
iv. Shri Nimesh Kampani*, Chairman, JM Morgan Stanley.
v. Shri G. Anantharaman, Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (IV), Mumbai.
vi. Shri Rajiv Mehrishi, Joint Secretary, Dept. of Company Affairs.
*
Shri Nimesh Kampani later on expressed that as he was not keeping well he would
not be able to attend the meetings of the Group for some time and hence would not
be able to continue as a member of the Group. His resignation was accepted.
3. Terms of reference
The terms of reference of this Group were as under:
i. to review and examine the present structure of stock exchanges including those set
up as companies and as unincorporated bodies and in this light examine the legal,
financial and fiscal issues involved to corporatise and demutualise the stock
exchanges, and
ii. to recommend the specific steps that need to be taken for implementation, and also
iii. to advise on the consolidation and merger of the stock exchanges.
The Group may during the deliberations call and hear the views of other legal
experts, stock exchanges and other market participants etc. The Group would
submit its report within two months from the date of its first meeting. The date of
submission of the report was further extended till August 31, 2002.
4. Recommendations
c) the clause (j) of section 2 of SCRA be amended to mean that the stock
exchanges could be companies incorporated under the companies act. The
present provisions under clause (j) of section of 2 of SCRA defines stock
exchanges to "mean any body of individuals, whether incorporated or not,
constituted for the purpose of assisting regulating or controlling the
business of buying, selling or dealing in securities". This clause would need
to be amended to provide that a stock exchange should be a company
incorporated under the Companies Act. (Para 9.4)
c) necessary provisions should also be made in the Indian Stamp Act and
the Sales Tax laws to exempt from stamp duty and sales tax, the
transfer of the assets from the mutual stock exchange and the
issuance of shares by the new demutualised for-profit company,
formed pursuant to an approved scheme of demutualisation; and that
d) as only the schemes for demutualisation approved by SEBI will qualify for
the exemptions under the Income Tax Act, the Indian Stamp Act and the
Sales tax Act, each stock exchange would be required to submit a scheme
drawn on the lines of these recommendations to SEBI for approval. (Para
9.18)
v. a) the roles and hence the posts of the Chairman and Chief
Executive should be segregated. The Chairman should be a person who
has considerable knowledge and experience of the functioning of the stock
exchanges and the capital market;
d) the exchange must appoint a CEO who shall be responsible for the day
to day functioning of the exchange. The CEO would be solely responsible
for the day to day functioning of the exchange which would also include
compliance with various regulations and risk management practices;
f) the board should not constitute any committee whose effect would be to
dilute the independence of the CEO of the exchange and the day to day
functioning of the exchange. (Para 9.29)
d) while the Group does not wish to recommend measures which may
provide an exit route to the members of the stock exchanges, any stock
exchange which fails to comply with the requirement of corporatisation and
demutualisation by the appointed date and is accordingly derecognised, will
have to distribute its assets in accordance with the provisions of the
respective articles/ rules of the stock exchange and the relevant tax laws
shall become applicable. (Para 9.44)