The Lok Sabha today passed the Securities Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2014 by voice vote. In his brief reply to a discussion on the bill, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, the Securities Exchange Board of India, SEBI has been given more powers to stringently deal with the fraudulent schemes involving financial investment by small traders. He said, the SEBI will be equipped with the searching power with a provision of checks and balances. Replying to a specific query, Mr Jaitley said, the government has registered cases against as many as 78 companies involved in the fraudulent activities.The bill, aims at giving more teeth to SEBI to crackdown on fraudulent investment schemes and seek information from any entity related to a probe. It also provides for setting up of special courts to ensure speedy trial and provide SEBI with powers such as authority to seek call-data records. An ordinance to empower SEBI to deal with ponzi schemes was promulgated thrice during the UPA regime but the same could not be passed by Parliament to make it an Act.