I am no super-regulator, clarifies Pranab

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday clarified in the Lok Sabha that the government was not trying to set up a super-regulator with himself as its head, even as the house passed a bill to help create a permanent mechanism to resolve disputes among regulators like the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, the PFRDA, and the Reserve Bank of India.

The securities and insurance laws (amendment) and validation bill 2010, which seeks to set up a joint committee to resolve regulatory disputes over hybrid instruments, was brought in to settle disputes between two or more regulators after they fail to settle it bilaterally, Mukherjee said while replying to the debate on the bill, which seeks to replace an earlier ordinance.

The move was necessitated by the recent dispute between SEBI and IRDA over regulation of unit-linked insurance instruments or ULIPs.

''It is not a case of dispute between the government and the regulator but between two or more regulators,'' Mukherjee said, adding that the joint committee would only function with the consent of parliament, which was the ultimate authority and there was no move from the government to create a super-regulator.

The centre would take prompt and definitive steps to protect the interests of investors and was committed to doing all to dispel any uncertainty in the country's financial market, he said.

Referring to SEBI-IRDA spat, he said while SEBI had instructed 14 insurance companies against investing in mutual funds without its approval, IRDA had maintained that the companies could continue with the practice.