IDBI loan fraud: BSE chairman refuses to comment on holding office

BSE

PTI

BSE chairman S Ravi refused to comment on his continuation as the head of the exchange even after he was named by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in its FIR in the Rs 600 crore IDBI Bank loan fraud case.

"God is there," Ravi said in his short reaction when asked if he will continue as the chairman of the country's leading bourse. The CBI had also named former Aircel promoter C Sivasankaran and his companies in the loan fraud case.

Ravi was speaking at an interactive session on stock market with members of Merchants' Chamber of Commerce and Industry on June 13. Sources said BSE has not received any feedback yet on the suggestions sought from market regulator SEBI on the issue.

The bourse had appointed Ravi as the chairman of the the board in November 2017.

This is the second case in which the CBI has also held responsibility of bad loan on independent directors. Earlier, the agency had registered a case against Anil Razdan and two independent directors in Era Infrastructure Engineering in the loan default case.

During deliberations, Ravi said corporate governance can be strong if the role between functional directors and independent directors is clear. He, however, did not elaborate on it.

He said raising capital is going to be a constraint in future owing to geopolitics and role of data analytics, artificial intelligence and robotics in the financial sector would be immense.