SEBI resolves nearly 5,000 complaints through SCORES in February

Capital markets regulator SEBI on Monday said it has disposed of 4,986 complaints in February through its grievance redressal facilitation SCORES platform.

The regulator said eight complaints were pending for more than three months on SCORES as of February-end involving entities such as ICICI Securities, Indiabulls AIF, Indianivesh Renaissance Trust, Kaizen Trust, and Nikhil Dayanand Baljekar.

According to SEBI data, complaints pending as on January 31 stood at 5,393.

During February, the markets regulator received 3,969 fresh complaints and a total of 4,376 complaints remained unresolved as on February 28, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said in a public notice.

SEBI also highlighted that the average resolution time taken by the entities to submit action taken reports (ATRs) in February was eight days.

Under the upgraded SCORES 2.0 framework, complaints are automatically forwarded to the entity concerned, which is given 21 days to submit an ATR to the investor.

If dissatisfied, investors can opt for a first-level review within 15 days. During this period, complaints remain on the pending list, even if an ATR has been submitted. If the investor continues to be unsatisfied, they can escalate the issue to a second-level review by the regulator, with the same timeline for resolution applying, SEBI said.

Further, the complaints can also be disposed of if an investor opts for the Online Disputes Redressal (ODR) mechanism, it added.

In a separate public notice, SEBI said eight complaints involving five entities were pending for more than three months on SCORES as on February 28.

Launched in June 2011, SCORES was designed to help investors lodge their complaints online with SEBI, pertaining to the securities market, against companies, intermediaries and market infrastructure institutions.

In April last year, the regulator launched the platform's new version, SCORES 2.0, with additional features.