The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey as the new Chairman of SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India).

Pandey will be the 11th chairperson of the capital market regulator for a three-year term, replacing Madhabi Puri Buch, who will complete her three-year tenure as SEBI’s first woman chairperson on Friday, February 28.

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“The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Shri Tuhin Kanta Pandey, IAS (OR:1987), Finance Secretary and Secretary, Department of Revenue to the post of Chairman, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), initially for three years from the date of assumption of charge of the post or until further orders, whichever is earlier,” the government order stated.

The 1987-batch IAS officer is the senior officer in the Finance Ministry handling the Department of Revenue. Interestingly, he assumed charge of India’s Revenue department very recently, on January 9, after his predecessor, Sanjay Malhotra, moved to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as its governor.

In his short period as Revenue Secretary, for less than two months, he played a key role in the significant overhaul of income tax slabs and the customs duty structure under the latest budget.

He spearheaded the new Income Tax Bill, which is currently under review by the parliamentary select committee.

In his over five-year stint from October 24, 2019 to January 8, 2025 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.

Born in 1965, Tuhin Kanta Pandey did his master’s in Economics from Panjab University, Chandigarh, followed by an MBA from the University of Birmingham (UK).

The outgoing SEBI chief, Madhabi Puri Buch, during her tenure, made big regulatory changes, including tighter rules for India’s derivative markets to protect retail investors from punting on risky financial products.

She also enforced tougher disclosures for corporates and fund houses and moved the Indian markets towards same-day settlement.

Buch oversaw a sweeping overhaul of regulations pertaining to equity derivatives trading in India, which emerged as the world’s top destination for such instruments.