Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey has been appointed the 11th chairperson the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), for a three-year term. The seasoned finance bureaucrat will replace Madhabi Puri Buch as SEBI chief, who will complete her three-year tenure as SEBI's first woman chairperson on Friday.
A notification by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) on Thursday said the Cabinet had approved the appointment of Pandey, a senior IAS officer currently working as Finance Secretary and Secretary, Department of Revenue, as the new SEBI chairman. Pandey's appointment is for three years.
Pandey will take over as the head of the market watchdog when the Indian stock market experiences bearish pressure following persistent withdrawals in funds by foreign institutional investors (FIIs). Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have withdrawn more than ₹1 lakh crore since January 2025.
The first woman to head SEBI, Madhabi Puri Buch, made big regulatory changes, including tighter rules for India's derivative markets to protect retail investors from punting on risky financial products. Buch championed safer small investment options to widen the reach of financial investments.
Buch has also enforced tougher disclosures for corporates and fund houses and moved the Indian markets towards same-day settlement. During her term, she oversaw a sweeping overhaul of regulations pertaining to equity derivatives trading in India, which emerged as the world’s top destination for such instruments.
However, last year she faced a lot of criticism for her husband's involvement with Adani Group. She survived huge pressures from the Congress and other opposition parties to quit, though the Union government solidly stood by her.
A 1987-batch IAS officer, Pandey is a senior officer in the Ministry of Finance and handles the Department of Revenue. Pandey was the longest-serving secretary in the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), a department in the finance ministry that manages government equity in public sector companies, and the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE).
He assumed charge of India's revenue department on January 9, after his predecessor, Sanjay Malhotra, moved to the Reserve Bank as its governor. Pandey played a key role in framing Budget 2025, giving middle-class tax reliefs totalling ₹1 lakh crore. He was involved in drafting the new Income Tax Bill, which sought to replace the 64-year-old Income Tax Act of 1961.
In his over five-year stint at the DIPAM, Pandey advanced disinvestments of CPSEs as he implemented the public sector enterprises (PSE) policy, which intended to minimise the government's presence in PSEs across all sectors of the economy.
Pandey was instrumental in privatising Air India. On October 8, 2021, the government declared the Tata Group the winning bidder. The conglomerate submitted bids of ₹18,000 crore. On January 27, 2022, the Tata Group took ownership of Air India. Pandey also oversaw the privatisation plans of the IDBI Bank. The bidders are currently undergoing the due diligence process.
Pandey holds an MA in economics from Punjab University, Chandigarh, and an MBA from the University of Birmingham, UK. He has worked in various capacities in the governments of Odisha and India. In the early part of his career, Kanta Pandey was the administrative head of the health, general administration, commercial taxes, transport, and finance department.
(By arrangement with livemint.com)
