India’s proposed securities market code holds promise but Sebi should be strengthened further
Last week, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the Securities Markets Code Bill of 2025 in Parliament, aimed at building a new legislative scaffolding for India’s securities markets.The Bill, which has been sent to the parliamentary panel on finance for comments and inputs, proposes to merge and replace three laws: the Securities and Contracts (Regulation) Act of 1956 and those related to the market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), and depositories. This was necessary to address multiple overlaps among those legacy acts of legislation.
The move is a follow-up of Sitharaman’s 2021-22 budget promise to consolidate various Acts into a single rationalized code. Broadly, the Bill is designed to strengthen investor protection, ease the compliance burden of sundry market operators and improve the overall governance framework for the market’s regulation.
The Bill proposes to achieve all this by increasing Sebi’s powers, strengthening market-infra institutions (such as depositories) and also decriminalizing a host of minor, technical or procedural lapses.At first sight, the Bill’s tabling in the Lok Sabha may seem like rearguard action to bolster market confidence in the regulator and its regulatory capacity. Doubts about Sebi’s oversight and investigative calibre were raised by perceptions in the wake of a US shortseller’s allegations against an Indian conglomerate, an episode followed by belated revelations of a big New York-based derivatives trader having manipulated indices and indulged in coordinated trades to accrue vast but allegedly illegal market gains.
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