After the market turmoil that it caused, it is appropriate that the term P-Notes, which is an abbrevation for Participatory Notes, be renamed as Panic Notes. Participatory Notes have caused so much Panic even though no drastic action was taken by SEBI yesterday against P-Notes. After all, P-Notes have not been banned by SEBI. P-Notes, which are offshore derivative instruments issued by FII’s or FII sub accounts which are registered with SEBI, have certain inherent benefits attached with them. The primary benefit of using P-Note is that, the entity or organisation using P-Note need not get registered with SEBI. The only necessity for using a PNote is that the entity should be registered with the registrar of companies or an equivalent body / organisation in the country of its orgin. The second advantage of using Participatory Notes lies in the tax front. Presently, the tax authorities can open the files of FII’s even after a period of 5 years after the date on which the actual transaction took place and penalise them. However, in the case of P-Notes, this is not possible. Also, registering as an FII is a tedious and time consuming process. Getting approval is very tough. Hence many foreign institutions take the PNote route to invest in India. The only argument going in favour of the Government and SEBI in particular, in regulating P-Notes is that it can potentially prove to be a serious threat to the country, both politically and economically. For ex: terrorists are said to be using Participatory Notes to pump in money into India to profit from the strong bull run that Indian stock markets are witnessing. The money thus made is likely to be used for financing terrorist activities. Since the origin of the investments is unknown, if P-Notes are used, it is difficult to trace who is investing and how much is being invested. Another reason for SEBI and the finance ministry to come down heavily on Participatory Notes is because SEBI suspects that certain institutions use the Participatory Notes way to artificially rig the share prices. The Indian stock market is likely to be extremely volatile until the dust settles on the Participatory Notes a.k.a Panic Notes issue.