New Delhi, Sept 5: The CVC is examining a Finance Ministry report on complaints against K M Abraham, a former member of capital market regulator Sebi, by a sitting Member of Parliament.
“We have got the response from the Finance Ministry, which is currently under examination,” a senior CVC official said.
The ministry had late last month submitted its findings to the Prime Minister's Office and the anti-corruption watchdog, among others, relating to the complaint forwarded to it by the CVC.
“The complaint was in regard to certain irregularities pointed out by the Member of Parliament. We had called for the Finance Ministry's response on it,” the official said, refusing to divulge further information. In a recent letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, accessed by PTI in response to an RTI query, Abraham had alleged that certain corporates and Finance Ministry officials were exploiting the vulnerability of the market regulator, which was investigating crucial cases involving prominent business houses.
However, the charges raised by Abraham were rejected by the Finance Ministry.
In a statement issued on August 30, the Finance Ministry dismissed the allegations of interference in the market regulator's job as “false, vexatious and defamatory”. The ministry said it had received numerous complaints against Abraham, ranging from corruption to abuse of power. These include complaints from several MPs about his conduct, while references have also been received from the CVC and Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
“The regulatory institution is under duress and under severe attack from powerful corporate interests, operating concertedly to undermine SEBI... I believe these insidious attempts are orchestrated from the office of the Union Ministry of Finance,” Abraham had said in his nine-page letter to the Prime Minister on June 1.
The Finance Ministry has also forwarded a complaint of alleged tax evasion against Abraham and another former Whole-Time SEBI Member, M S Sahoo, to the Director General of Income Tax (Investigation), Mumbai, for necessary action in accordance with the law, the reply said. Abraham and Sahoo retired from SEBI in July.
The former SEBI member, in his letter, alleged direct or indirect interference by certain top government functionaries in cases involving private and public sector giants like Sahara Group, Reliance (both the Ambani Groups of companies), Bank of Rajasthan and the MCX Stock Exchange. PTI
