Responding to calling attention motion by Congress leader and former finance minister Dr Manmohan Singh on the extreme volatility in the stock markets, Mr Sinha assured the Rajya Sabha, "The guilty shall be brought to book without fear or favour and no one shall be spared."

The rolling settlement will be extended to all 200 scrips in category-A in modified carry-forward scheme, automated lending and borrowing mechanism (ALBM) and borrowing and lending securities scheme (BLESS) by July.

The finance minister said corporatisation of stock exchange would be done in a manner in which ownership, management and trading membership would be segregated from each other. "Administrative steps will be taken and legislative changes, if required, will be proposed accordingky," he said. Mr Sinha said legislative changes will be introduced to further strengthen the provisions in Sebi Act, 1992 to ensure investor protection. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has informed the government that bank advances against shares and guarantees to stock brokers by banks was less than two per cent of the total advances as on December 31, 2000. As per information available with the RBI, there has been no violation of prudential norms, he said.

The finance minister said Sebi has assured him that there was no systematic risk to the market and there was no danger of a payment crisis.

Mr Sinha said the fall of about 63 per cent in technology stocks was in line with the crash in international prices of such stocks. "Nasdaq, which consists mainly of new economy stocks, has declined by about 59 per cent from March 2000 to March 2001. The markets in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Germany went down in the last one year by about 50 per cent, 40 per cent, 55 per cent and 71 per cent, respectively. The BSE Sensex decreased by about 22 per cent in the last one year so," he said.

Mr Sinha said though the downward movement of Indian stock market and its volatility have not been unusual compared to international markets, Sebi received information in the beginning of March that stock prices were being manipulated. Sebi is conducting investigations in co-ordination with the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the Calcutta Stock Exchange (CSE) against 20 brokerage entities.