The Securities Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2014, aims to empower capital market watchdog Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) by giving powers such as authority to seek call data records, was Wednesday approved by the Lok Sabha.

The Bill would give more teeth to Sebi to crackdown on fraudulent investment schemes, seek information from any entity related to a probe and also provide for setting of special courts to ensure speedy trial.

An ordinance to empower Sebi to deal with ponzi schemes was promulgated thrice during the previous UPA regime but the same could not be passed by Parliament to make it an Act.

Once the Bill becomes an Act, Sebi would have powers to call for information "not only from the people or entities associated with the securities market but also from persons who are not directly associated with the securities market".

Besides, the capital market watchdog would get increased powers to crack the whip on illegal investment schemes.

The Bill aims to protect investors as well as curb fraudulent investment schemes thriving at the expense of gullible investors.

As per the Bill, any unregistered scheme having a corpus of Rs 100 crore or more would be deemed as a collective investment scheme.

Instead of First Class Judicial Magistrate, the Magistrate or Judge of such designated court in Mumbai — as notified by the central government — would have jurisdiction to issue an order "for the seizure of books, registers, other documents and records". (PTI - ZEE)