SEBI blames ‘external forces’ for fuelling discontent among its staff, says they are well-paid but misguided

SEBI blames external elements for misleading junior officers on HRA issues, targeting credibility and leadership, demanding benefits.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has blamed “external elements” for “misguiding” its staff, more specifically junior officers in House Rent Allowance (HRA) issues, to target its credibility and “its leadership”.

“It is our belief that SEBI’s junior officers, who were in large numbers, originally aggrieved in respect of HRA allowances, have been misguided, perhaps by external elements to believe that as “employees of a regulator”, they should not be held to high standards of performance and accountability even though they have in fact demonstrated that they are fully capable of delivering to high standards to the market ecosystem,” SEBI said on Wednesday (September 4, 2024).

They have been misguided also to believe that they were being underpaid even at a CTC of ₹34 lakh per annum and that it would be in their interest to “use issues of work culture to bargain for monetary benefits and to believe that they should get automatic promotions”, it said.

It opted not to name the “external forces” by saying “we would not like to speculate on who those external elements may be or what their motives might be”.

On SEBI’s work culture, the market regulator released a five-page statement stating that the employees, in recent past, were demanding 55% increase in HRA over the allowances set in 2023 among numerous other benefits.

“Employees also raised an issue on updation of SEBI’s automated Management Information System for Key Result Areas (KRAs), which had been designed to bring more transparency, fairness and accountability within SEBI. A 15-minute silent protest was held in this context,” SEBI said.

It said a group of employees consciously designed a strategy to change the narrative to frame the issue as relating to the work environment “with an objective to have bargaining power to seek more benefits”.