Mihir R Shah, member of the governing board of the Ahmedabad Stock Exchange (ASE), has taken over as the new president of the bourse following the resignation of Deepak S Shah from the post on Friday.
Deepak S Shah, who had taken over charge as ASE president only three months back, in April this year, is learnt to have resigned on "personal grounds" and the ASE governing board called an emergency meeting on Saturday night and unanimously elected Mihir R Shah to take over as president.
An ASE source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Deepak Shah decided to submit his resignation as the new guidelines issued by Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) stipulate that a person doing proprietary trading on any stock exchange cannot continue to be an office bearer on that bourse.
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This rule, which would come into force from July 31, forms part of Sebi's efforts towards corporatising and demutualising the stock exchanges in the country.
However, as per rumours doing the rounds, Deepak Shah had to resign following pressure from a large section of ASE brokers who felt that he has not been very vociferous in supporting their ongoing agitation demanding reintroduction of weekly settlement and modified carry forward system.
The new ASE president Mihir Shah is the managing director of Merry Sharefin Ltd, which is a corporate member of ASE.
He said his immediate priority is to take up pressing issues like reintroduction of weekly settlement and modified carry forward system for which the ASE members have been agitating for more than a week now.
Some other issues that he would like to resolve on priority basis are Sebi turnover fees, NSDL charges and restrictive entry to derivative segments.
Meanwhile, as the trade boycott resorted to by the ASE Brokers Association (ABA) entered the seventh day, not a single trade was recorded on ASE today.
ABA vice-chairman Atul M Chokshi said that a nine-member delegation from the bourse would be leaving for Mumbai tonight to participate in the meeting scheduled to be held at 2.00 pm on Tuesday at the BSE Convention Hall, BSE Premises, Mumbai.
This meeting is jointly held by the NSE Members Association and BSE Brokers Forum and they have invited representatives of all the stock exchanges to attend the meeting.
The objective of the meeting is to form the Federation of Indian Stock Brokers (FISB), with a full-fledged office and professional staff.
Also on the agenda is to press Sebi and the Union finance ministry to reintroduce weekly settlement and modified carry forward system on all the Indian exchanges.
Chokshi said: "If there is no favourable response to our demands from Sebi or the Union Ministry of Finance, we will issue a call for a one-day closure of all the stock exchanges in the country to press for these issues."