Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Indian Capital Markets - A Survey of the Regulatory Provisions

Abstract

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has been a visible entity in the Indian capital market, thanks to the tremendous growth in the capital market and its numerous legislative and institutional responses in attempting to ensure the orderly functioning of the market, protecting public investors and development of new products and institutions. While a general awareness of the role that SEBI is expected to and has played exists among investors, academics and lay people, the exact legal levers that SEBI operates are not widely understood, from an economic perspective.Such an understanding would be an important first step for a more systematic evaluation of the contribution of SEBI to the working of the Indian securities market. The paper traces the evolution of regulation of two of the more important aspects of the securities market, namely the primary and the secondary market. The paper does not emperically evaluate the economic or financial impact of SEBI's regulatory activity or the exercise of its regulatory provisions or analyse the same from a public policy perspective. Instead the paper would be a useful precursor to either of such analyses. This paper is part of a larger research endeavour to critically examine the field of securities regulation in India under the supervision of SEBI.