class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on May 19, 2023, issued a consultation paper on strengthening of investor grievance handling mechanism through scores and linking to the online dispute resolution mechanism.
The consultation paper seeks to solicit public comments on the proposal to strengthen the investor grievance handling mechanism through SEBI Complaint Redressal System (SCORES) and integrate the same with the online dispute resolution (ODR) mechanism which was recently approved by SEBI. This proposal is aimed at making the entire redressal process of grievances in the securities market comprehensive by providing an end-to-end solution and making the process more efficient and faster by reducing timelines and introducing auto-routing and auto-escalation. The proposal also provides for two levels of review that the investor can opt for, plus the option for referral to the Online Dispute Resolution mechanism recently approved by SEBI.
The salient features of the SCORES system are:
a. Centralised database of all complaints,
b. The online movement of complaints to the concerned entities,
c. Online upload of Action Taken Reports (ATRs) by the concerned entities,
d. Online viewing by investors of actions taken on the complaint and its current status,
e. The entity concerned and the concerned investor can seek and provide clarification(s) online with each other;
f. The life cycle of a complaint has an audit trail;
g. All the complaints are saved in a central database which would generate relevant MIS reports to enable SEBI to take appropriate policy decisions and/ or remedial actions.
Comments as per aforesaid format may be sent to the following, latest by, 2023 within 15 days from the date of publication of this consultation paper.
