Advisers should share blame for ONGC: Shourie

Union Communications and Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie said the advisers to the government on the public issue of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) should also partly share the responsibility for the confusion in the allotment of shares in the company's public offer.

The minister told reporters that though it was the registrar's primary responsibility to ensure there were no goof-ups during the process, the advisors too "could not wash their hands off the affair", as they were the government's agents for the public offer.

"There are lessons to be learnt from this issue for the registrar and for the government. I think we need to strengthen the process of registering such large deals. These are the issues that we will deal with," Shourie said on the sidelines of a seminar.

He said most of the subscribers to whom shares were allocated in excess to the pre-assigned numbers had returned the shares.

The minister added that the allotment process had not yet completed because individual investors were being contacted to rectify the errors in the applications.

On the day the shares were allotted to the public last month, a number of high net worth individuals had found that they had been wrongly given excess shares.

PTI adds: The lead managers and registrars of the ONGC issue "" MCS Ltd and Karvy Consultants "" today reviewed the status of despatches and allotment of shares.

Following a meeting, it was decided to communicate the basis for allotment of shares to the shareholders. The meeting also discussed investors' complaints on delay in allotments, sources said.