Securities and Exchange Board of India Chairman U.K. Sinha called for greater parliamentary oversight over the norms set by regulators.
“Regulators are removed from government, but are created by Parliament,” Mr. Sinha said while delivering the JRD Tata Memorial Lecture. “They have quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative powers that affect everybody ranging from the individual to the biggest corporation. Regulators have emerged as ‘mini states’.”
While the operational autonomy of the regulators is very important, the “Parliamentary scrutiny of legislation by regulators needs to be more severe.” “There are hundreds of such legislations laid before Parliament,” Mr. Sinha said. “It is doubtful whether they go over all of them. They do not have the operations to do it.”
Mr. Sinha recommended that Parliamentary Committees be empowered with the required number of domain experts to aid them in their decision-making.
