Stricter, More Granular Disclosure Norms On The Cards After Gensol And Bharat Global Scams: NSE CEO

The Securities and Exchanges Board of India is considering additional and more stringent disclosure regulations for listed companies after incidents like those involving Gensol Engineering Ltd. and Bharat Global Developers Ltd. rocked the capital market.

Speaking on disclosure regulations, Ashishkumar Chauhan, chief executive officer of the National Stock Exchange, told NDTV Profit, "Depending on the circumstances, the regulator will come out with additional regulations, or tighten existing ones."

He added that SEBI is also talking to industry stakeholders about making exchange disclosures more integrated and granular in nature.

All the information that NSE gathers on listed companies is shared with the regulator when needed, Chauhan said. "And that will continue in some updated way, basis a consultation between the regulator and the frontline exchange," he told NDTV Profit on the sidelines of the World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit 2025 in Mumbai.

Chauhan's comments point at regulatory re-evaluation of disclosure norms, and follows market scams like those by BGDL and Gensol, both of which involved fake disclosures in order to inflate stock price, among other violations.

SEBI had said that BGDL created a "completely false" narrative about its design, engineering and construction business and was actively trying to induce investors to buy its shares based on false disclosures. In Gensol's case, fake disclosures were also used to round-trip funds and mislead investors.

While Chauhan's comments point at an industry-wide problem which was brought to light through two recent cases, it is to be noted that Bharat Global is not listed on NSE.

Chauhan said that stock exchange disclosures work on the basis of the assumption that a company's auditors, managers and board are honest and transparent, and this in turn creates cracks through which cases like Gensol and BGDL slip through.

"The bad practices have to be eliminated, and good ones need to be promoted in terms of the information being given to investors," Chauhan said when asked about transparency and governance standards of listed entities.

NSE, Chauhan added, is also among the stakeholders that SEBI is consulting with in its plan to monitor pump and dump activity. NDTV Profit was the first to report that SEBI was working on new systems to get alerts on tracking abnormal trading activity, including pump and dump scams.

Chauhan also said that the exchange is still waiting for SEBI's go-ahead for its initial public offering, which will largely be an offer for sale.