Government has finalised the appointments of State Bank of India managing director A K Batra and former Industrial Development Bank of India deputy managing director T M Nagarajan, as the two new executive directors of Securities and Exchange Board of India.

Batra is currently managing director and group executive in charge of corporate banking in SBI, while Nagarajan retired from IDBI some months ago as deputy managing director.

Official sources in New Delhi said the names have been finalised by the finance ministry and would be notified shortly.

Sebi chairman G N Bajpai, who met finance ministry officials on Monday, is believed to have discussed the appointment among other things, sources said.

The posts were lying vacant for a few weeks after the two executive directors R M Joshi retired and D N Raval quit Sebi.

Sebi had advertised in the paper for filling the posts and interviewed quite a few professionals.

However, the candidates were finalised after various official procedures.

The appointment of the two new EDs in Sebi is being viewed in the light of the restructuring undertaken to make the regulator more strong.

Government had amended the Sebi Act and empowered the regulator to impose higher penalties and carry out in depth investigation in case of market frauds.

Sebi is also in the process of increasing its staff strength, especially its investigative team to check frauds and market manipulations.