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June 4, 2001
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JPC sets March 3 as probe cut-off date

Subhomoy Bhattacharjee

The joint parliamentary committee has set March 3 as the starting point of their probe into the stock market volatility. The decision was arrived at informally among the members at the last JPC sitting on May 30.

Sources said, the decision was taken on the basis of discussions with the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the finance ministry.

Apparently, the members felt that as the mandate of the committee was to enquire into fluctuations in the markets that arose despite a well received budget, there was no point in extending the inquiry to the pre-budget period.

The decision means that the JPC has generally accepted that the post-budget euphoria in the markets was genuine and will not be probed.

Incidentally, the Sebi has advised the members that though the markets rose on February 28, the day the budget was presented, it could be attributed largely to the impact of the measures announced in the Budget. It went up again by 24 points on March 1.

The markets downslide begun on March 2 when it went down by 176 points.

On March 2 the then president of the BSE Anand Rathi had obtained "certain trading related information from the surveillance department of the exchange".

The Sebi interim report has also talked about it and the JPC members felt that most of the sensitive happenings, including the surfacing of the payment problems in the Calcutta Stock Exchange on March 8 and impact of the Tehelka video, screened on March 13, which later spread to other bourses, would be covered.

Interestingly, most Congress members were absent from the sitting of the committee recently. Sources said, it was one of the reasons that the members felt that it would be better for the chairman to sound them out before announcing the cut-off date.

The JPC had been debating the date for quite some time. Thus, the members felt that no serious discussions could take place without clarity on the scope of the inquiry.

Meanwhile, the members are still divided on whether any purpose will be served by concentrating on the action-taken report of the previous JPC. Those against it, argue that since it pertained to a banking scam no useful insight will come about.

But the finance ministry is taking no chance, with finance secretary Ajit Kumar holding meetings with the banking division to clarify the ministry's position on the ATR due to be discussed by the committee on June 12 and 13.

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