After PAC, Parliament's finance panel set to review Sebi's functioning

Newly-constituted parliamentary standing committee on finance on Tuesday said it will ask top officials of Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to appear before it as the panel, in its first meeting, decided to review the performance of regulatory bodies.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is already slated to undertake such a review at its next meeting on October 24, and has asked finance ministry and Sebi officials to appear before the panel.

The standing committee on finance, which is chaired by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Bhartruhari Mahtab, and its members including Congress’ P Chidambaram and Manish Tewari, met on Tuesday for the consideration and adoption of subjects that it will examine in 2024-25.

Over the last few days, several other parliamentary panels have met to select issues that they will examine in the next one year. Some of the subjects that the panel on petroleum and natural gas has picked are pricing, marketing and supply of petroleum products and natural gas, review of oil PSUs, including their international operations and investments.

The panel on communications and IT has said it will review the “mechanism to curb fake news” and the emergence of OTT platforms and related issues. It will also examine the “emergence of new forms of currencies and its impact”.

The panel on external affairs will look at, among other issues, the “future of India-Bangladesh relationship” and evaluate India's Indian Ocean strategy, facilitating external economic engagement of states and Union Territories.