The government has said that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) was empowered to take action against Reliance Industries (RIL) if a probe established irregularities in share allotment by the company in 2000, and wanted to know what exactly the market regulator expected from it.
"When you have the powers, what is it exactly that you want us to look into," the Ministry of Corporate Affairs said in a letter to Sebi in response to the regulator's suggestion for appropriate action against RIL for alleged routing of funds to dummy companies to buy its own shares in 2000.
"Under section 55 of the Companies Act, Sebi also has jurisdiction to look into matters related to securities," the ministry noted.
At the same time, the ministry asked the regulator for details of its own investigation to initiate appropriate action.
Sebi, in its letter to the Corporate Affairs Ministry earlier, had said that the matter of "irregular issue of privately placed debenture (PPD) IV and V by RIL" are being referred for "consideration and appropriate action."
The regulator had separately taken the opinion of retired Supreme Court judge Justice B N Srikrishna on its probe.