HPCL had on August 7 sought "specific clarifications from Sebi pertaining to procedures and approvals related" to the issue. The promoter tag does not bring any additonal privilege to ONGC. But its absence keeps it out of insider trading regulations even though it gets full agenda of every HPCL board meeting and can be aware of price-sensitive information. According to Sebi rules, the entity that owns the controlling stake should be listed as promoter even if it was not the original promoter of the company. While the HPCL management has been unrelenting, oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan in written replies to questions in Parliament described the company as an ONGC subsidiary. The government too has been treating HPCL as an ONGC subsidiary and its headhunter Public Enterprises Selection Board had on June 17 called ONGC chairman Shashi Shanker to assist in selecting the new director (finance) of HPCL. Till then, HPCL chairman Mukesh K Surana would sit on the PESB interview panels for selecting directors.