New Delhi: The National Stock Exchange, facing criticism over the lifting of surveillance framework from Adani Group stocks, issued a statement noting that its actions take place without “human discretion.”On March 17, PTI had reported that the NSE and Bombay Stock Exchange has announced that three Adani group companies, Adani Enterprises, Adani Power and Adani Wilmar, will move out of the short-term additional surveillance measure (ASM), under which they were put on March 8.This move helps safeguard investors from unusual stock movement during instances of high volatility in shares. Business Standard noted that when a stock is in the ASM list, it serves as a warning to investors about unusual activity in the stock and some trading restrictions are put on these stocks to halt unnecessary speculation.The move was likely triggered by US-based short seller Hindenburg Research’s report in January, alleging stock manipulation and fraud against the Adani Group, which let to the group’s stocks losing at least 50% of their market value.In February, a subsidiary of the NSE had announced the addition of five Adani Group firms into 14 Nifty indices, effective from March 30. It also retained Adani Enterprises and Adani Ports and SEZ in its flagship Nifty 50 index. The move, according to The Hindu, led financial experts to seek an urgent intervention and SEBI review.Opposition Congress claimed that even as global index providers were reviewing Adani stock positions, the NSE has bent over backwards to accommodate Adani Group’s stocks.In the face of criticism alleging that the NSE is protecting Adani’s interests, it brought out a three-page late-night statement on Sunday saying, as quoted in a separate report by The Hindu, that there was “no human discretion in deciding on inclusion or exclusion of stocks in any of if [sic] its indices”.Times of India noted that the statement said that the inclusion and exclusion of stocks is “based on index methodologies that are objective, non-discretionary, rules based, pre-announced and transparent.”It added that the policies of risk assessment were all transparent, as were the rules governing the surveillance action on eligible stocks.“Thus given the current pre-announced, transparent, rules based, automatic, non discretionary regulatory framework for surveillance measures and for index inclusion/ exclusion at NSE, no human discretion is possible for any one and this entire process and practice has been running for decades,” the NSE also said, according to The Hindu.Various governance committees including those with external independent members are in place to approve of index changes, it noted.