“The decision was mostly to ensure that there are no disruptions at regulators at a time when the Indian economy and corporates are going through covid-19 related uncertainties,” a finance ministry official said on the condition of anonymity.

Tyagi, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, will now head the regulator till at least 28 February 2022. This is his second extension; the first one was granted in February for six months.

During his tenure, Tyagi instituted a consultative process for drafting regulations and ensured that the market regulator was not influenced by special interests. Under him, Sebi set up 30 committees and working groups, which drafted close to 60 discussion papers.

However, his biggest achievement is the way he handled the covid-related disruptions. From 25 March, when the lockdown began, till the last week of May, Sebi focused on relaxing compliance needs for regulated entities and ensured markets were not manipulated amid high volatility.

“Ajay Tyagi has performed extremely well as chairman of Sebi. He has been humble, open to ideas, a tough enforcer of rules without fear or favour and, above all, has been a good leader,” said Sandeep Parekh, managing partner, Finsec Law Advisors.

“We need a Sebi which gets into a simplified and easy to understand set of regulations, which enables ease of doing business. The regulator is already by far the most market-oriented and retail investor-focused of all regulators, but that should not prevent it from going out and helping businesses and industry,” he said.

During the nationwide lockdown, Sebi eased several norms, including allowing participants to trade from home, easing fundraising norms, complying with KYC requirements, relaxing registration timeline, extending timelines to comply with norms and extending result filing dates for companies.

However, there are still some pending issues, including whether the definition of a promoter needs to change and a decision on ways to boost the corporate debt market.