Tuhin Kanta Pandey, the former Union Finance Secretary, took charge as the Chairman of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on March 1, Saturday. The next day, the news broke that a Mumbai Special Court Judge directed the city’s Anti-Corruption Bureau to file FIRs on former SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and three of the regulator’s four Wholetime Members for their alleged complicity in listing of a now delisted company in 1994.
Without wasting any time, Mr. Pandey, 59, moved into action.
In a statement, SEBI said that even though these officials were not holding their respective positions at the relevant point of time, the court allowed the application [to register the FIR and a court monitored investigation] without issuing any notice or granting any opportunity to SEBI to place the facts on record. “The applicant [a media reporter who could get a court order on Saturday, the day after Ms. Buch exited office and the day Mr. Pandey took over] is known to be a frivolous and habitual litigant, with previous applications being dismissed by the Court, with imposition of costs in some cases,” it said.
SEBI said it would initiate appropriate legal steps to challenge the order.
On the day he took over, at the SEBI headquarters in Mumbai, Mr. Pandey faced a lot of questions from journalists, particularly about the style of functioning of his predecessor. In his response, he firmly put the organisation’s integrity at the centre, without resorting to any blame game.
Mr. Pandey, a 1987 IAS officer of the Odisha cadre, is the 11th Chairman of SEBI. All of SEBI’s past heads, except G.N. Bajpai and Ms. Buch, were IAS officers. With Mr. Pandey at the helm, SEBI has returned into the fold of the “steel frame of India”, as the Indian Administrative Service is often referred to.
In the past three months the Centre has selected two Finance Ministry secretaries as regulators — Sanjay Malhotra, who was appointed as the RBI Governor in December last year, and now Mr. Pandey.
During his over three decades career as a bureaucrat, Mr. Pandey has held noteworthy positions in the Union Government and the State Government of Odisha, besides serving a stint in the Regional Office of the UN Industrial Development Organisation.
Rich experience
Before joining SEBI, Mr. Pandey served as the Union Finance Secretary, Revenue Secretary and Secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, Secretary, Department of Public Enterprises and Secretary, and Department of Personnel & Training. He was also with the Planning Commission (Now Niti Aayog), the Cabinet Secretariat and the Ministry of Commerce in the past.
After Mr. Malhotra’s posting at the RBI, Mr. Pandey had played a key role in the preparation of the last Union Budget.
As the disinvestment secretary for five years, he has handled the divestment of the government’s stake in many Public Sector Enterprises, including Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd and several companies from the Indian Railways stable. He had also handled the strategic sale of Air India to the Tata Group in 2021-22.
His former colleagues describe him as someone who is thorough and methodical. He has a very good sense for numbers and most importantly as a person, he is uncompromising and unyielding, they say.
Having a Masters degree in Economics from Panjab University, Chandigarh and an MBA from the University of Birmingham (U.K.), Mr. Pandey has a tough task ahead — he has to tame a rampaging bull as markets have been volatile in recent weeks due to ‘Trump tantrums’, and fight manipulations in the derivatives market.
Tough times call for tough measures. Mr. Pandey is no stranger to such measures. “Capital market is a dynamic space so change is imminent but we will certainly not be looking for maximum regulation but for optimum regulation,” Mr. Pandey said on March 7, in his first public speech since assuming the chairmanship of the regulator.
Published – March 16, 2025 01:20 am IST
