PM asks Sebi to stop insider trading

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday asked the capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to root out the "pernicious disease" of insider trading, saying the future effectiveness of the institution would depend on this.

Addressing the silver jubilee celebration of the Sebi in Mumbai, the prime minister said: "A key indicator of SEBI's future effectiveness will be its ability to root out the hard-to-define but extremely pernicious disease of insider trading."

Manmohan Singh said the size and sophistication of the Indian securities market were increasing at a very rapid pace.

"Every day, we see the development of new products with greater complexity than ever before. Developments in technology have resulted in speedier trading processes," he said.

"Simultaneously, the number of entities that SEBI needs to regulate continues to increase. All this points to the need for SEBI to constantly upgrade and improve. It is only by building its human and technological capabilities that Sebi can fulfil its mandate of delivering strong and effective enforcement," the prime minister added.

Speaking on the occasion, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram asked Sebi to work fearlessly to protect the interests of small investors.

"Be a fearless regulator. Bend before no one, bow before no one," Chidambaram said.

"Win confidence of small investors. Its when a small investor says my money is safe in the financial market because I have SEBI watching over my money, that is the day when SEBI would have achieved its objective," the finance minister said.