It was no less than a constitutional crisis averted just in time. On Thursday, the cabinet secretariat and prime minister’s office were rattled for a few hours when sources in the President’s secretariat told them that President Pranab Mukherjee had refused to promulgate the SEBI ordinance approved by the cabinet on Wednesday. The PMO rushed its senior officials to the Rashtrapati Bhavan to firefight. Thankfully, the crisis was averted with the president agreeing to sign the documents.

On Thursday, two policy files were put up before the president. One of them was to seek his permission to convene the monsoon session of parliament from August 5 (it will end on August 30). While the other was to promulgate an ordinance to provide more powers to the capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to tackle fraudulent investment schemes that defraud investors.

The union cabinet had on Wednesday had approved the proposal to amend the SEBI Act and other relevant regulations that would give greater powers to the regulator in its efforts to tackle all kinds of money-collection schemes, as also to effectively crack down on defaulters in the stock markets.

According to sources, the president was taken aback and asked why there was a need to bring in an ordinance while parliament would be in session shortly. He conveyed his displeasure to the cabinet and kept the policy files waiting for close to two hours, sending the power blocks into a tizzy.

After much persuasion, President Mukherjee finally agreed to sign the documents. A senior official confided that the PMO is rattled by the Thursday’s crisis.