The Parliament has given its seal of approval to the Securities Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2014 with the Rajya Sabha adopting the measure on Tuesday.

In his reply to a discussion on the Bill in the Upper House, 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, SEBI will be equipped with search powers with a provision of checks and balances.Justifying the location of the designated court at SEBI’s headquarters in Mumbai, the Minister said this will save time and energy of the market regulator in getting search warrants from judicial officers.

To a specific query, the minister said chit funds will not come under the CIS of SEBI as they are governed by laws framed by state governments.

On the question of imposing penalties on defaulters, the Finance Minister said they are fixed in accordance with the offence and to the extent of violation of rules.

The bill gives more teeth to SEBI to crackdown on fraudulent investment schemes and seeks information from any entity related to a probe.

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.