Supreme Court declines Moitra plea on fund disclosures

The Supreme Court of India on October 29, 2026, disposed of Mahua Moitra’s plea seeking public disclosure of the ultimate beneficial owners and portfolio holdings of alternative investment funds and foreign portfolio investors, saying it could not order such disclosure without a legal framework. A three-judge bench comprising Justices B.V. Nagarathna, R. Mahadevan and D.K. Upadhyaya declined to direct the Securities and Exchange Board of India to require the disclosures. The court said it could order compliance if a legal regime existed, but could not issue a mandamus in its absence. The bench asked the Union government and SEBI to consider whether suitable transparency regulations were needed. The court’s position leaves the creation of any such rules to those authorities; it did not order them to adopt a particular framework. Moitra, a member of Parliament, had asked the court to require disclosure of the people who ultimately own or benefit from AIFs and FPIs, as well as the funds’ portfolio holdings. Her petition argued that greater transparency would help protect investors. Her lawyer, Prashant Bhushan, contended that investors could be harmed by entities using the funds...