The bailout of ONGC's offer-for-sale by LIC could prompt stock market regulator SEBI to investigate whether orders were punched after market hours, say market experts.

This has been triggered by the delay in the announcement of subscription numbers by the stock exchanges.

Questions are also being raised on why LIC bid higher than the floor price of Rs 290 when a recent stake sale of similar size — that of Citigroup exiting HDFC and fetching around Rs 9,000 crore — was bid for at 6 per cent discount to the market price.

In fact, sources say the floor price of Rs 290 decided by the Government was higher than what the advisors had suggested.

ONGC and its parent Ministry — the Ministry for Petroleum and Natural Gas — remained non-committal on the whole issue. Petroleum Ministry officials maintained that the decision was taken by the Department of Disinvestment.

Unlike a fresh issue (initial public offering or further-on-offer) where a company is involved in the price discovery mechanism, in this case, the company was not part of any decision-making process, sources said. In this case, it was a stake sale by the promoter.

An inter-ministerial group comprising the Petroleum Ministry, the Department of Disinvestment, and the Law and Finance Ministries took a call on the pricing, which was subsequently approved by the Empowered Group of Ministers. Hence, the question as to who takes the brunt for the whole action on Thursday.

LIC policy-holders for sure, say market observers. Those in the street observed that LIC policy holder's bonuses could be hit if the stock tanks.

“There needs to be an investigation on how both exchanges could develop a glitch simultaneously and we intend to file public interest litigation against LIC in this regard,” said Mr Shravan Sharma, a Mumbai-based LIC policy holder.

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