For years, thousands of investors have been locked out of their own holdings because their old paper share certificates could not be transferred or dematerialised. Many bought legitimate shares before 2019 but could not get them recorded in their names. Sellers died. Companies shut down. Paperwork went missing. Now SEBI wants to fix this old pain-point and clean up India’s last pockets of paper ownership. A new consultation paper issued October 17 (https://tinyurl.com/sebidococt2025) by the stock market regulator proposes major steps. Together, they aim to move India closer to a fully-digital shareholding system while protecting genuine investors. Here is a lowdown.

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SEBI had stopped transfer of physical shares from April 1, 2019. Since then, any transfer can happen only i

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