Securities and Exchange Board of India

The Securities and Exchange Board of India is the regulatory body for securities and commodity market in India under the administrative domain of Ministry of Finance within the Government of India. It was established on 12 April 1988 as an executive body and was given statutory powers on 30 January 1992 through the SEBI Act, 1992.

History

The SEBI was first established in 1988 as a non-statutory body for regulating the securities market. Before it came into existence, the Controller of Capital Issues was the market's regulatory authority, and derived power from the Capital Issues Act, 1947. The SEBI became an autonomous body on 30 January 1992 and was accorded statutory powers with the passing of the SEBI Act, 1992 by the Parliament of India. It has its headquarters at the business district of Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai and has Northern, Eastern, Southern and Western Regional Offices in New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, and Ahmedabad, respectively. Up until June 2023, it also had 17 local offices spread all over India to promote investor education; however, 16 of them were closed as part of a restructuring exercise.
The SEBI is managed by its 9-member board of members, which consist of the following people:

The chairman, who is nominated by the Union Government of India.
Two members from the Union Finance Ministry.
One member from the Reserve Bank of India.
The remaining five members are nominated by the Union Government of India, and out of them at least three should be whole-time members.

After the amendment of 1999, collective investment schemes were brought under the SEBI except nidhis, chit funds and cooperatives.

Organisation structure

took charge as Chairman on 1 March 2025, replacing Madhabi Puri Buch, whose term ended on 28 February 2025.

Current board members

The board currently comprises:

Name	Designation
Tuhin Kanta Pandey	Chairperson
Amarjeet Singh	Whole time member
Kamlesh Chandra Varshney	Whole time member
Sandeep Pradhan	Whole time member

List of Chairpersons

The list of SEBI's chairpersons is:

Name	From	To
Dr. S. A. Dave	12 April 1988	23 August 1990
G. V. Ramakrishna	24 August 1990	17 January 1994
S. S. Nadkarni	17 January 1994	31 January 1995
D. R. Mehta	21 February 1995	20 February 2002
G. N. Bajpai	20 February 2002	18 February 2005
M. Damodaran	18 February 2005	18 February 2008
C. B. Bhave	18 February 2008	18 February 2011
U. K. Sinha	18 February 2011	10 February 2017
Ajay Tyagi	10 February 2017	28 February 2022
Madhabi Puri Buch	1 March 2022	28 February 2025
Tuhin Kanta Pandey	1 March 2025	29 December 2026

National Apex Bodies

National Institute of Securities Markets of India
Functions and responsibilities

The Preamble of the Securities and Exchange Board of India describes the basic functions of the Securities and Exchange Board of India as "...to protect the interests of investors in securities and to promote the development of, and to regulate the securities market and for matters connected there with or incidental there to".
SEBI has to be responsive to the needs of three groups, which constitute the market:

issuers of securities
investors
market intermediaries

SEBI has three powers rolled into one body: quasi-legislative, quasi-judicial and quasi-executive. It drafts regulations in its legislative capacity, it conducts investigation and enforcement action in its executive function and it passes rulings and orders in its judicial capacity. Though this makes it very powerful, there is an appeal process to create accountability. There is a Securities Appellate Tribunal which is a three-member tribunal and is currently headed by Justice Tarun Agarwala, former Chief Justice of the Meghalaya High Court. A second appeal lies directly to the Supreme Court. SEBI has taken a very proactive role in streamlining disclosure requirements to international standards. In October 2025, SEBI issued a consultation paper proposing new incentives for retail investors in corporate bonds such as higher coupon rates or issue-price discounts for certain investor categories and recommended raising the threshold for High-Value Debt Listed Entities to ease compliance for issuers.

Powers

For the discharge of its functions efficiently, SEBI has been vested with the following powers:

to approve by−laws of Securities exchanges.
to require the Securities exchange to amend their by−laws.
inspect the books of accounts and call for periodical returns from recognised Securities exchanges.
inspect the books of accounts of financial intermediaries.
compel certain companies to list their shares in one or more Securities exchanges.
registration of Brokers and sub-brokers.
eliminate malpractices in security market.

SEBI committees

Technical Advisory Committee
Committee for review of structure of infrastructure institutions
Advisory Committee for the SEBI Investor Protection and Education Fund
Takeover Regulations Advisory Committee
Primary Market Advisory Committee
Secondary Market Advisory Committee
Mutual Fund Advisory Committee
Corporate Bonds & Securitisation Advisory Committee

There are two types of brokers:

Discount brokers
Merchant brokers
Major achievements

SEBI has enjoyed success as a regulator by pushing systematic reforms aggressively and successively. It is credited for quick movement towards making the markets electronic and paperless by introducing the T+5 rolling cycle in July 2001, the T+3 in April 2002, and the T+2 in April 2003. The rolling cycle of T+2 means that settlement is done in 2 days after trade date. SEBI has also been active in setting up the regulations as required under law. It did away with physical certificates that were prone to postal delays, theft and forgery, apart from making the settlement process slow and cumbersome, by passing the Depositories Act, 1996.
SEBI has also been instrumental in taking quick and effective steps in light of the global meltdown and the Satyam fiasco. In October 2011, it increased the extent and quantity of disclosures to be made by Indian corporate promoters. In light of the global meltdown, it liberalized the takeover code to facilitate investments by removing regulatory structures. In one such move, SEBI has increased the application limit for retail investors to from at present.
On the occasion of World Investor Week 2022, SEBI Executive Director Shri G. P. Garg launched a book on Financial Literacy. This book is a joint effort between Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India Limited and CASI New York.

Criticism and controversies

heard a Public Interest Litigation filed by India Rejuvenation Initiative that had challenged the procedure for key appointments adopted by Govt of India. The petition alleged that, "The constitution of the search-cum-selection committee for recommending the name of chairman and every whole-time members of SEBI for appointment has been altered, which directly impacted its balance and could compromise the role of the SEBI as a watchdog." On 21 November 2011, the court allowed petitioners to withdraw the petition and file a fresh petition pointing out constitutional issues regarding appointments of regulators and their independence. The Chief Justice of India refused the finance ministry's request to dismiss the PIL and said that the court was well aware of what was going on in SEBI. Hearing a similar petition filed by Bengaluru-based advocate Anil Kumar Agarwal, a two judge Supreme Court bench of Justice Surinder Singh Nijjar and Justice HL Gokhale issued a notice to the Govt of India, SEBI chief UK Sinha and Omita Paul, Secretary to the President of India.
Further, it came into light that Dr. K. M. Abraham had written to the Prime Minister about malaise in SEBI. He said, "The regulatory institution is under duress and under severe attack from powerful corporate interests operating concertedly to undermine SEBI". He specifically said that Finance Minister's office, and especially his advisor Omita Paul, were trying to influence many cases before SEBI, including those relating to Sahara Group, Reliance, Bank of Rajasthan and MCX.

Regulatory failure, inaction, and incompetence

Several major financial scams have shaken the Indian market, like the Satyam scam, IL&FS crisis, Punjab National Bank Scam, and NSE co-location scam Critics argue that SEBI failed to properly monitor these companies or take timely action when irregularities were noticed. There have been instances where market intermediaries engaged in fraudulent activities, which resulted in significant losses for investors. SEBI’s monitoring of these intermediaries has been called into question. SEBI has been criticized for its inability to effectively regulate and prevent insider trading, despite having regulations in place. There have been numerous cases where insider trading went undetected for long periods. Some believe SEBI hasn't done enough to prevent companies from issuing IPOs at inflated prices, which hurts regular investors.
Market manipulation is an ongoing concern in the Indian stock market, particularly with small-cap and mid-cap stocks, which are more susceptible due to lower trading volumes, less liquidity, and limited market analyst coverage. Pump and dump schemes are a prevalent form of manipulation, where false or misleading statements are used to inflate a stock’s price before the manipulators sell off their shares at a profit, leading to significant losses for unsuspecting investors.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India has been criticized for not being able to prevent such manipulations effectively. Reasons include limited resources, reliance on stock exchanges for market data, a lack of a comprehensive legal framework with stringent penalties, slow response times, and a lack of coordination with other regulatory bodies.