SEBI blames outsiders for instigating officers, disses earlier work culture

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) appears to have tied itself up in even more knotty questions following the, as evinced by its five-page statement released late on Wednesday, 4 September.

Blaming unidentified outside elements for instigating its officers into media leaks about the ‘toxic work culture’ questions the judgement of its own employees, 500 of them — and hardly speaks highly of the organisation.

The statement claims that the day these 500 junior officers (half the workforce of that rank, with an average annual salary of Rs 34 lakh) signed a letter sent to the human resource department, an anonymous email containing charges against the SEBI top brass was also sent to the ministry of finance. This was on 6 August.

A second letter was also sent to the HR department a week later, with 16 demands, the statement said — again, not an admission that inspires confidence in the market regulator!

The statement also points out that the SEBI Employees’ Association and the SEBI Employees Association of Legal Officers had disowned the email to the finance ministry. Both the associations, it claims, had dissociated themselves from the email and condemned the leaks to the media and the surreptitious complaints to the ministry.

The statement goes on to claim that the employees had held a 15-minute silent protest, ostensibly against raising internal issues in the media and escalating them to the finance ministry.

Having said that, the statement says that these highly paid junior officers, drawing an average annual compensation of Rs 34 lakh, wanted a 55 per cent raise in their HRA (house rent allowance) that was finalised in 2023. In effect, it would have amounted to an increase of Rs 6 lakh per annum per employee.

And now, SEBI appears to be guilty of washing its own dirty linen in public, exactly what it had condemned the employees for!

Indeed, after depicting its junior officers as selfish, self-centred and money-minded, the statement goes on to state that these officers were working at one-fourth of their actual processing capability — which is why the employees' KRAs (key result areas) had been modified.

It, however, stays silent on the charges of toxic work environment, stress and the in-house mental health counsellor getting swamped by the increasing number of consultations sought by its employees.

The statement said it would not like to speculate on the ‘external elements’ and their motive.

The ‘junior officers have been receiving messages from external elements outside their group, effectively instigating them to go to the media, the (finance) ministry and the board, perhaps to serve their own purpose,’ it said. The 6 August letter, titled ‘Grievances of SEBI officers — a call for respect’, accused the senior management of using unprofessional language, setting unrealistic targets, and monitoring "minute-by-minute movements."

‘SEBI officers are already well paid, and for entry-level officers at Grade A, the cost to company is approximately Rs 34 lakh per annum, which compares extremely favourably even with the corporate sector,’ the statement added.

Claims of unprofessional work culture are misplaced, it says, and then proceeds to criticise the work culture before its current chairperson, Madhabi Puri Buch, took over.

They ranged from ‘under-pitching of processing capability, mis-reporting of status of achievement of KRAs, shuttling of files between departments over a long period to avoid taking decisions and adjusting appraisal of poorly performing officers to ‘somehow’ make them eligible for promotion,’ the statement claims.

After dissing the earlier work culture and the capabilities and ethics of its employees, the market regulator stated, ‘It is unfortunate that some elements have attempted to diminish the significant capabilities of SEBI employees by instigating employees to believe that, as “employees of a Regulator” they should not be required to have such high standards of performance and accountability.’

So, has this statement provided clarity — or been a same-side goal for SEBI? The protests today, 5 September, at its Mumbai headquarters might suggest the latter.