What is SEBI SCORES?

SEBI SCORES is the complaint system of the Securities and Exchange Board of India. You use it when an intermediary has not answered, or the answer has not fixed the problem. For an IPO, it is not the first door. SEBI’s primary-market FAQ and the general information document send you to the registrar for allotment and missing shares, and to the bank for a block that will not lift. The broker is the intermediary if the bid was never uploaded. SCORES is the step after those.

The address that answers today is scores.sebi.gov.in. SEBI’s FAQ has also printed an older scores.gov.in address. That older host does not resolve. Use the sebi.gov.in address.

The March 2021 circular, SEBI/HO/CFD/DIL2/CIR/P/2021/2480/1/M, tells banks and lead managers to clear pending unblock complaints on SCORES under a published compensation rule. The rule has applied to issues opening on or after 1 May 2021. For a late unblock the bank pays ₹100 a day, or 15% a year of the application amount, whichever is higher. The T+3 circular of 9 August 2023 starts that count on T+3. If the complaint stays open after the day it is received, the post-issue lead manager pays the same daily rate for the extra days. SCORES is where you lodge the grievance. The bank and the lead manager are who pay.

Write the facts the registrar already asked for: application number, PAN, DP ID, client ID, and whether the problem is missing shares or money that is still blocked. Add the unique mandate number from the UPI app if you have it. A complaint that only says “IPO money stuck” is harder to match to a file.

The bank’s own reply, when you had given correct details and the form was rejected for wrong data, is due within 15 days. Going to SCORES on the same afternoon as a late UPI refresh skips that step. Wait until 4 pm on T+2 has passed, ask the registrar and the bank, and then file.

What SCORES will not decide

It will not put your name into the retail draw. A valid form that was not picked is “not allotted”, and the remedy is the unblock, not a second lottery. It will not quote a grey market premium. It will not compute the tax on a sale. That sale, once the shares are in the demat account, is the capital gains calculator. The status guide is the order of calls: registrar, then bank or broker, then SCORES.