Aspirant brokers file case against Nepse, Sebon, Finance Ministry

Benchmark Securities filed a case today against Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse), Securities Board of Nepal (Sebon) and Finance Ministry making it to a total of seven aspirant brokers filing case against the recent decision of Nepse on their disqualification to sit for the practical exam on October 9.
Benchmark Securities has asked the Court to let its new managing director sit for the practical exam that is scheduled for October 9 instead of its former managing director, who is abroad currently.
"The Nepse denied entrance card to the company's new managing director," said lawer of Benchmark Securities Sri Kanta Regmi. "The Nepse in first hand took three years to conduct exam and it expects that the people will wait for the exam for eternity," he said, adding that it is against the law of natural justice. "The company has the right to appoint new managing director."
However, according to the Nepse, only the managing director can sit for practical exam for 25 mark.
The earlier six aspirant brokers filed their case on Sunday claiming that they could not be disqualified by the Nespe that has disqualified four -- Mechikali Securities, A and A Securities, Om Sri Ganesh Securities and Trinity Securities -- on the basis of insufficient paid-up capital and two -- Sky Securities and Crystal Kanchanjunggha Securities -- on the basis of their directors being involved in other firms also.
The four companies have challenged the Nepse that it cannot disqualified the companies sitting for exam on the basis of Company Act that has defined the structure of paid-up capital, which according to them is enough.
Similarly, the other two also have told the Court that their directors have already resigned from another firms.
The Court has yesterday issued the show-cause notice to Nepse, Sebon and Finance Ministry in the two cases -- of paid-up capital and directors.
"We are hopeful of getting verdict on Thursday," the lawer said.
The Nepse has disqualified 25 companies and only 137 were qualified out of the total 162 companies that have reapplied.
Currently there are only 25 brokers, out of whom only a dozen are active. The Nepse plans to add 25 more stock brokers to make it a total of 50 brokers.
Nepse has after a long struggle of almost three years fixed the date of brokers for this Saturday. It had asked the aspirants to restate their eligibility as per the required criteria and only those that can prove they are still eligible can appear in the test. Some 162 companies showed their eligibility but only 137 are selected for the exam after the verification of the information provided by the applicants.
The selection process was halted in February 2008 when Nepse had already selected 316 applicants from the total of 336 applicants that had to go through test of 25 marks. But Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) halted the process questioning the transparency in the appointment process just the day before the test was going to take place.