In the interest of investor protection, on July 22, SEBI issued 2 circulars to amend the extant guidelines for grievance redressal mechanism for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs). For REITs, SEBI modified para 5.3 of Annexure B of the circular dated December 29, 2016, and for InvITs, SEBI modified para 5.3 of Annexure B of the circular dated November 29, 2016. Henceforth, REITs and InvITs must disclose in uniform and easy to understand prescribed formats, all complaints received by them including SCORES complaints on their websites and with the recognised stock exchanges, where their units are listed, within 21 days from the end of the financial year or end of the quarter, as the case may be. Post the amendments, apart from disclosing information related to the number of pending and disposed complaints, REITs and InvITs must also provide the average time taken for redressal of complaints on a quarterly or financial year basis, as the case may be. The requirement for enhanced disclosure of statistical data related to investor complaints will improve transparency in the grievance redressal mechanism and encourage REITs and InvITs to expeditiously redress investor complaints. Further, ensuring that all REITs and InvITs use a uniform format for disclosing information related to investor complaints, directly on their websites, will give investors easy access to critical information and help them make informed investments decisions.
