NEW DELHI: The government on Friday appointed National Securities Depository Limited Chairman C B Bhave as the new Chairman of the capital market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India, an official release said. Bhave will replace incumbent M Damodaran whose term expires on February 17. Bhave will serve the office for three years from the date he assumes office. He will be the sixth Chairman of the market watchdog. Bhave had earlier served SEBI as an Executive Director under its first Chairman G V Ramakrishna. His predecessors, apart from outgoing Chairman M Damodaran and Ramakrishna, are G N Bajpai, D R Mehta, S S Nadkarni. A 1975 batch IAS officer from the Maharashtra cadre, Bhave, 57, quit the the civil services in the mid-1990s to take up an assignment with the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL). NSDL had drawn flak for the 2006 IPO price manipulation case from the market regulator Sebi which also suggested overhauling the management of the depository. The depository did not accede to the suggestion and challenged it before the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT). NSDL eventually got an award in its favour. During his stint as Chairman of NSDL, Bhave contributed his bit in improving the functioning of the capital market by introducing a paperless system for storing securities.