Raids info came after MCX-SX licence approval: Damodaran

Defending the decision during his tenure to grant licence to MCX-SX, former Sebi chief M Damodaran has said the letter about the "so-called raids" came to the regulator after approval was accorded to the bourse.
Besides, the letter about income tax probe against the applicant entities had said that "nothing is conclusive", Damodaran said.
His comments come against the backdrop of CBI registering a Preliminary Enquiry against former Sebi Chairman C B Bhave and former member K M Abraham for alleged irregularities in granting licence to MCX-SX.
"What was during my tenure. We gave approvals and the letter came afterwards. Has anybody bothered to look at that? Nobody has bothered to look at it. The letter about so-called raids having said that nothing is conclusive came after we accorded the approvals," Damodaran told CNBC TV18 today.

MCX-SX, which was originally promoted by Jignesh Shah-led Financial Technologies (India) Ltd, was first given licence during the period when Damodaran was at the helm of Sebi. FTIL is under the scanner of multiple agencies in the wake of Rs 5,600 crore payment crisis at NSEL.
Without elaborating, Damodaran said, "Some day everything will come out. Why should I tell you now?".

CBI has registered the PE on the grounds that Sebi granted a licence to MCX-SX in 2008 and further renewed it during subsequent years despite an Income Tax Department probe against the applicant entities.
Asserting that he was not commenting on the aspect of what the investigators are doing, Damodaran said: "It is not my job to second guess what the investigating agency is doing. I have no idea, I have absolutely no idea about who spoke to whom and who did not. Therefore I wish not to comment."

Describing media reports about the issue as "half baked", he said he did not want to go out there and make statements without knowing enough about what is being discussed.
"All that I know is that what I am reading in some of the papers is half-baked. All that I know is that all manner of statements made of who did what and who didn't do what and people have without collecting material I suspect have gone on writing in newspapers," he said.
According to him, it would have been far better to talk to everyone concerned and arrive at something rather than wanting to first off the starting block and break stories which are broken stories anyway.

Last week Bhave had said that CBI was working with a "crazy logic" and has ignored the fact that the tax department itself found no merit in the case years ago.
"In this particular case, three Sebi chairmen have arrived at the same conclusion and had similar views. Why don't they file a PE against the current chairman for continuing the licensee of MCX-SX after the NSEL scam broke out?," Bhave had said.
Clarifying that he was not demanding probe against former or current Sebi chairmen, Bhave said he was only "explaining the crazy logic behind the case" against him.