Sebi sees significant fall in pending investor complaints

Investor grievances pending with Sebi have declined nearly 18 per cent till March-end, with the markets regulator working on expeditious disposal of the complaints, according to the latest data.
The number of pending grievances has fallen sharply to less than one-tenth from 49,113 in 2008-09.
The number of pending actionable complaints, which stood at 5,452 as on March 31, 2016, came down by 17.90 per cent to 4,476 by March 31, 2017, according to the SCORES data in the 2016-17 Annual Report of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).
"The number of pending grievances has been steadily declining over the years due to expeditious disposal by Sebi," the report said.

According to the report, out of the 4,476 pending grievances as on March 31, 3,492 complaints have been pending for less than six months.
"Only 984 grievances were pending for more than six months as on March 31, 2017, as compared to 1,973 grievances pending for more than six months as on March 31, 2016," the report said.

The Sebi Complaints Redressal System (SCORES) is a
centralised Web-based grievance remedial platform.
Among the salient features of SCORES are a centralised database of all complaints and their online movement to the listed companies concerned.
The other characteristics of the system include online uploading of action taken reports (ATRs) by the firms as well as online viewing by investors of actions taken on their complaints and the current status.

The regulator received 40,000 investor complaints during 2016-17, a rise of nearly 3 per cent over the previous fiscal, according to the report.
The report also said the number of investor complaints received by Sebi on a cumulative basis increased to 30,03,454 as on March 31, 2017, from 29,63,454 as on March 31, 2016.
During 2016-17, Sebi conducted a survey on SCORES through an independent agency to gauge investor satisfaction with the system.
The survey, which was conducted with 10,000 investors selected randomly from across Mumbai, New Delhi, Ahmedabad and Kolkata, broadly indicated that more than 75 per cent of the respondents who had filed complaints with Sebi expressed satisfaction with the grievance redressal mechanism.