A US judge on Thursday slapped Indian-American Wall Street titan Rajat Gupta with two years in prison and a fine of $5 million for insider trading. The development once again raised questions why Indian capital market regulator SEBI often fails to deal with such cases with an iron hand.

SEBI has been making attempts to crack down on insider trading for a long time, but it has so far hardly achieved any major success. Experts accuse the lack of strict punishments for economic offences in the country and the lack of adequate powers in the hands of the market regulator for low level of success.

In India, people accused of insider trading often walk scot-free or get away by paying a very petite fine.

The criminal proceeding can send offenders behind the bars, but it requires proof beyond logical doubts.

Sandeep Parekh, former chief of legal & enforcement wing at SEBI, said,

"Since it is difficult to gather this quality of evidence, the criminal conviction rate for insider trading is not high."

The major obstruction for SEBI in bringing offenders to books is the market regulator's inaccessibility to superior technology to collect reliable evidence.

It may be noted here that records of telephone conversations between Rajat Gupta and his friend Raj Rajaratnam played a crucial role in the case against Gupta. But, SEBI is still seeking powers to tap phones and access call records of suspects.