Ease of doing business and investor protection are not opposing objectives. Removing redundant compliance can serve both. The problem begins when relief for intermediaries is clear and measurable, while the consequences for investors remain unexamined.

That is the test SEBI’s recent changes must meet. Investor awareness campaigns cannot compensate for inaccessible redress, slow enforcement or fee reductions that look better on paper than in investors’ accounts. Protection must be judged by outcomes, not announcements.

SCORES says grievances emailed to SEBI’s email addresses will not be entertained. A designated complaints channel can improve tracking and accountability. But investors without digital literacy or procedural knowledge need a workable route into that system.

SEBI’s 2025 Investor Survey puts the access problem in perspective. The report’s cited figures suggest only 6% of respondents knew about its grievance redressal mechanism, with helpline use lower still. Project Jagrook may help investors understand markets, but awareness and access are separate responsibilities.

Complaint volumes make the distinction consequential. SCORES received 61,788 complaints in 2025-26, down from 68,132 the previous year but substantially above 34,752 in 2022-23. Brokers and depository participants, mutual funds and registrars, and listed companies accounted for most complaints.

These numbers do not establish regulatory failure. They do establish the need to distinguish administrative disposal from effective resolution. Routing a complaint to an intermediary is a necessary step, not sufficient evidence that an investor’s problem has been resolved.

The relevant measures are therefore not simply complaints received and closed, but time taken to resolve them, whether relief was delivered, and whether the same failures recur. Publishing these outcomes would help distinguish an efficient complaints platform from an effective redress mechanism. It would also make clear where responsibility lies when an intermediary’s response does not settle the dispute.

Relief needs a reason

The same distinction applies to concessions for intermediaries. SEBI’s 2025-26 figures show that the top 10 brokers accounted for 53.1% of BSE cash-segment turnover and 43.1% of NSE turnover. Concentration does not prove regulatory capture. It does raise the stakes when rules governing large intermediaries are relaxed.

SEBI’s revised penalty framework reportedly reduced exchange-enforceable items from 235 to 90 and removed monetary penalties for initial offences involving minor lapses. Proportionate penalties are legitimate. The question is whether the revised framework separates harmless procedural errors from failures that expose clients to loss.

Its January 2026 trading-glitch circular raises a related question. Allowing client communication within two hours and preliminary reporting to exchanges by the next trading day requires a clear explanation of how investors remain protected during the intervening period. Lower compliance costs are only one side of that calculation.

Each material relaxation should explain which burden is being removed, what protection remains and how the outcome will be reviewed. Where the benefit accrues immediately to intermediaries but the potential cost falls on clients, the case for change needs more than an assurance that compliance will become easier.

Mutual fund expenses demand similar scrutiny. The revised framework reduces the first equity-scheme base expense-ratio cap from 2.25% to 2.10%, according to the latest mutual fund regulations. But the base cap excludes brokerage, transaction costs and statutory levies. A lower component cannot, by itself, demonstrate a lower total bill. SEBI should show the like-for-like effect on investor costs and how the framework shares economies of scale.

Enforcement Must Deliver

Enforcement provides the other test of protection. SEBI’s annual report shows that 34% of pending Section 11 proceedings were more than two years old at the end of 2025-26, while nearly 40% were between one and two years old.

Fewer inspections or orders do not automatically mean weaker supervision. Cases differ in complexity, and raw counts say little about quality. An ageing backlog, however, warrants an explanation of delays, priorities and outcomes.

Settlements likewise need not signify leniency. Their credibility depends on whether sanctions, recoveries and remedial measures are proportionate to the misconduct. Describing settlements as efficient does not answer whether they deter repetition.

The same discipline should apply to enforcement disclosures. Investors need to understand not just whether a case ended in an order or settlement, but what misconduct was established, what remedy followed and what changed to prevent recurrence. That is a more meaningful account of regulatory performance than a tally of actions alone.

SEBI should disclose the outcomes of escalated complaints separately from intermediary-handled resolutions and explain the investor impact of material regulatory concessions. Greater investor representation on its market and mutual fund committees would also help test proposals against investor interest.

The regulatory responsibility is not to preserve every rule or punish every lapse. It is to demonstrate that simpler compliance leaves investors adequately protected. Ease of doing business should remove unnecessary friction, not investor safeguards.