Tick-Box Compliance Culture Not Enough, Timely Information Dissemination Matters: SEBI Chairman
Mumbai: Market participants, regulators, listed companies, and investors are part of one ecosystem, working towards sustainable growth, trust, and accountability. This trust shouldn’t be not just to meet regulatory standards, but to raise them. “Not just to tick compliance boxes, but to build institutions that inspire confidence across generations,” SEBI Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said on Saturday.
“SEBI continues to drive the Indian capital markets toward higher standards of governance, accountability, and stakeholder trust. Listed entities are obligated to disclose material events or information within clearly defined timelines.
“This timely dissemination ensures that all market participants—insiders and outsiders alike—receive access to material facts at the same time, preventing selective leaks or asymmetry in the availability of price-sensitive information,” Pandey told The Free Press Journal.
“When teamwork, technology, and transparency are combined with professional ethics, trust and a shared vision for excellence, we create a market environment that is inclusive, efficient, and future-ready,” Sebi chief said.
A well-functioning capital market thrives on transparency, trust, and equal access to information. Recognising this, SEBI has established a robust disclosure framework for listed entities that ensures stakeholders-whether institutional or retail-are equipped with timely and reliable information to make informed decisions.
To promote information symmetry, SEBI has mandated periodic disclosures of critical financial and governance related information. These include-quarterly financial results, shareholding patterns, compliance reports on corporate governance, statements on deviation or variation in the use of proceeds from public issues, rights issues, or preferential issues. These regular disclosures help investors assess the company's financial health, ownership structure, governance standards, and the fidelity of fund deployment as committed to the market.
The regulator has observed some egregious behaviour involving siphoning of funds, overstatement of profits, breakdown of internal control systems and lack of effective board oversight in some companies.
In response to such misconduct, SEBI has undertaken detailed investigations and forensic audits to assess potential violations of securities laws and to hold those responsible accountable.
“We have also initiated stringent enforcement actions, which include debarring entities from accessing the securities market, restraining individuals from holding positions as directors or key managerial personnel, imposing monetary penalties, and in appropriate cases, directing entities to return the siphoned funds along with interest to the affected listed company. Such actions demonstrate SEBI’s commitment to protecting investor interest and upholding regulatory discipline in the market. At the same time, it is also the shared responsibility of BCAS to reinforce “peer-based accountability”.
In addition to periodic reporting, the market regulator has introduced event-based disclosures to provide information with respect to the events that could materially affect a company’s performance or valuation.
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