The credibility of market regulator Sebi is also at stake, with several sections wondering whether anything will come out of this latest probe at all. All eyes are also on the stockmarket on Monday, following the Friday crash.

Regulatory officials, who did not wish to be quoted, told The Financial Express that it would have to be established whether there was indeed a bear cartel or the crash was a result of huge unwinding of long positions by bulls trapped when foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold heavily in tech counters on Friday.

However, the general view in the market clearly is that the trapping of bulls is a consequence of the operations of a group of large brokers, who had been hammering down the market. "This trend has been going on not just on Friday, but for quite a few weeks now. Sebi should probe the movements of prices not just on Friday, but for the past several weeks to actually understand the nature of the irregularities," a frontline market player said. "There have been identical occasions even earlier where such steep falls have taken place. These must be probed."

BSE president Anand Rathi told The Financial Express on Sunday that there was no question of office-bearers being involved in irregularities as they "do not involve themselves in micro-management of the exchange." Mr Rathi also said the additional volatility margins imposed on leading technology stocks by the exchange on Saturday were normal under the circumstances.

However, there's also enormous scepticism about whether the Sebi probe would actually lead to anything at all, since the earlier probe into price rigging into BPL, Sterlite and Videocon way back in 1998 had yielded precious little and the final word on that is yet to be out.

"The probes into bear hammering have become a kind of annual ritual. Sebi must ensure that its probes are credible and done by officers with an impeccable record," sources said. Regulatory officials said bear cartel or otherwise, these days trading was dominated by a handful of large players funded by people with high stakes and in power, and it would take a good degree of political will by Sebi to get to the bottom of this.

Besides, the excuse of "warehousing" used by some brokers to transfer unofficial positions to official ones is also a cause for concern, and something Sebi can do little about. "There's little trouble in the official books. There's strict margining and things are in place. The problem lies in the unofficial positions, which get transferred to official ones," a source associated with the probe said.

Market players also felt that those operators who had liabilities totalling the amount of their membership deposits and bank guarantees may actually not want to pay up at all and may in fact want their broking cards to be taken away, since that would also lead them not to pay the Sebi registration fees.

"Some brokers may opt for this route as well to get away," sources said, warning that unless exchanges stepped in, problems may crop up in the market this week.

Mr Rathi and the regulatory officials, however, made it clear that there was no possibility of a payment crisis, since margins were adequate and trade guarantee funds were adequate to tackle any problems that may arise.