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Journalism of Courage
Speeding up the Special Court
More than seven years after the securities scam, Justice D K Trivedi, who now presides over the Special Court has done something concrete to eliminate a major clog in the system. The scam accused heaved a sigh of relief as the judge ruled that they would no longer have to seek its permission for travel within the country. Unlike the TADA courts and the bomb blast trials, the scam-accused had to go through an expensive process of seeking permission from the court to even move outside the municipal limits of Mumbai. It meant filing an affidavit with copies in the court, the CBI and others. The applications were heard and the CBI counsel had to appear each time at the tax-payer8217;s expense.
Since 1992 the court has heard and disposed off 7,000 such applications. Finally, relief was granted when stock broker Bhupen Dalal raised the issue of his Fundamental Right to travel within the country in order to practice his profession. The judge then ruled on Friday that permissionwill no longer be required for domestic travel. This allows the court to start each day by going straight to specific cases and will also save tax payers8217; money.
The BSE is scrutinising their activities, SEBI is keeping a vigil, but with 23 stock exchanges doing their own thing, companies still get away with name changes and image make-overs. The name-game is so shady a business that even genuine companies who change their names are viewed with suspicion. But most find it difficult to prove anything. For instance, there is Netvista, which now says it is a software company, until recently it used to be Kraft Industries and promised to set up a polymer project for several years.
It has now junked the polymer pretension after all, polymer needs brick and mortar while software contracts are all paper. There is another. Once upon a time, it was called Auriferous Finance; later it became Madhupala Credit Capital, but it still got thrown out of BSE. That did not end itscareer either. It retained a Hyderabad Stock Exchange membership and now has a new avatar naturally in computers. It calls itself InaReddy Computers and is waiting for its share price to take off. In fact, it has already doubled, instead of Rs 1 per share, its now trades at Rs 3 and growing.
Grabbing NRIs
Ram Buxani, a well known Dubai-based industrialist cynically tells people that NRI stands for Non-Resident Idiots. From public issues to real estate sharks everybody exploited their greed and ripped them off. Distance made them sitting ducks because their complaints are easier to ignore. After a four-year slump in real estate and primary market the NRIs are being remembered to peddle software stocks. NRI consultants are springing up everywhere, this time via the ubiquitous email. Here one that8217;s doing the rounds.
The company claims offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad and representatives throughout India and the globe8217;. It says: 8220;We have tied-up for NRI firm allotment in the forthcomingpublic issues of a few existing software companies who are leaders in their fields of IT.8221; Really? The email sales pitch has only one purpose to create a suckers8217; list of NRIs who can be dumped with so-called software stock via firm allotment. In fact, private placements and firm allotments and guaranteed returns have always followed every investment boom. These are the guys who try to be smart and end up holding dud stocks with no scope for redress.
No time for holidays?
Usually companies and institutions get their holidays for the next year decided well before the last month of the previous year. A reader writes in to say that the BSE8217;s holiday list seems to have been afflicted by the Y2K bug. Well into February, the exchange told him that it is still to finalise its list of holidays for the year. Is this because brokers do not want any breaks when the market is booming and the Sensex is soaring? Or maybe it is the all important need to synchronise holidays with other stock exchanges so thattrading positions can been smoothly rolled over from one exchange to another.
Author8217;s email: suchetadalalyahoo.com
