this story originally appeared in on mar 26 2014 mumbai meleveetil damodaran who headed sebi between 2005 and 2008 has said there was no conclusive evidence furnished by the finance ministry in 2007 that would have enabled the market regulator to block the jignesh shahhelmed ft group from acquiring 5 stakes in delhi and vadodara stock exchanges we had given permission in august 2007 in october 2007 we got a letter from the finance ministry that ft mcx a commodity exchange and shah might not be fit and proper based on inputs from cbdt but there was nothing conclusive as a result sebi decided that any move to cancel the permission would not hold up in court damodaran told et explaining the sequence of events the veteran civil servant said the limited issue faced by sebi in 2007 under his leadership was whether the ft group could pick up small stakes in two regional stock exchanges that were virtually defunct commenting on the controversial pe against his successor cb bhave and former sebi executive director km abraham damodaran said it should not have been made public but he would also take at face value the cbis assertions that it had evidence to begin a probe director of cbi ranjit sinha says he has credible information so people should not secondguess that but pe should not come into the public domain it is in any case just a preliminary enquiry if the person is later exonerated it comes in the inside pages of newspaper said damodaran damodaran66 who handled the collapse of the original uti in the early 2000s was responding to remarks by his successor to et reported in the edition dated march 18 that the communication from north block which appears to be at the heart of the cbi probe was received during his damodarans tenure bhave had told et that if he had committed any wrong then both his predecessor and his successor should be probed as they had also given various clearances to jignesh shah entities clarifying his role damodaran said the issues facing him in 2007 were far narrower there was no entity called mcxsx at the time all that we were called upon to decide was if ft entities could take 5 per cent stakes in two regional exchanges whether they were fit to run a new exchange is a different matter altogether in his interview with et bhave was not calling for action against either his predecessor or his successor denouncing the pe against him bhave was making the point that any probe by the cbi against either damodaran or uk sinha the current sebi chief would be equally illogical