The third ordinance also lapsed late last month, leaving Sebi without these extra powers which were used by the regulator in nearly 1,500 cases during their validity period.

The ordinance, which had 30 clauses, was brought in against the backdrop of lakhs of small investors being duped by numerous fraudulent investment schemes across the country, like in the alleged Saradha scam in West Bengal.

With the new powers, Sebi can now act against all illegal money-pooling schemes involving Rs 100 crore or more, launch recovery proceedings, pass disgorgement orders for ill-gotten money and facilitate its return to identifiable investors, among others.

The market watchdog would have powers seek call data records and other information from any person, company, bank, authority or organisation during its probes.

However, these powers do not include authority to tap phones and other electronic data directly.

Under the amended law, there is a dilution from the direct powers granted to Sebi Chairman through as many as three ordinances in the past one year to authorise search and seizure operations and is being seen as a safeguard against any possible misuse of such powers by the regulator.

Now, Sebi would need to take permission from the special court for search and seizure operations.

Earlier, such permissions would be required from the courts across the country with jurisdiction over the particular area where such operations were required.

As there were apprehensions that such a system was time-consuming and prone to leak of information, the Ordinance brought in by the previous government granted direct powers to Sebi for any search and seizure.

"Members (of Parliament) had expressed dissatisfaction against this provision that this is too arbitrary a power... Therefore, this power had to be tapered down," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said in the Rajya Sabha this month, adding that the Act has been fine-tuned.

"...The new architecture of this Act is that if you have a collective investment scheme (CIS) and were not covered under the original language, a wider language has been introduced. If you are having a big scheme You will be included in it," he had said.

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