Which body regulates the insurance sector in India?

The correct answer is B, the Hilton Young Commission. Formally the Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance, it reported in 1926 and recommended a central bank separate from the Imperial Bank of India; the recommendation led to the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934, and the Bank began work on 1 April 1935 with its central office at Calcutta, which moved permanently to Bombay in 1937. Option A is wrong; the Narasimham Committee reported on banking sector reform in 1991 and again in 1998, long after the Bank existed, and gave India the capital adequacy and prudential norms of the reform years. Option C is wrong; the Chakravarty Committee of 1985 reviewed the working of the monetary system and shaped monetary targeting. Option D is wrong; the Sivaraman Committee, the Committee to Review Arrangements for Institutional Credit for Agriculture and Rural Development, led to the founding of NABARD in 1982, which is the distractor most often chosen.

The correct answer is C, Hyderabad. IRDAI began in New Delhi but its office was shifted to Hyderabad in 2001, and this move is exactly why the question is asked: the candidate who assumes that every financial regulator sits in Mumbai or Delhi gets it wrong. Option A is wrong for IRDAI but is the right answer for several neighbours: the Reserve Bank of India, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, NABARD and the Securities Appellate Tribunal are all at Mumbai. Option B is wrong here, though New Delhi is the headquarters of the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, the National Housing Bank and the National Financial Reporting Authority. Option D is wrong; Chennai hosts no national financial regulator, although it has a bench of the National Company Law Tribunal. For completeness, remember Lucknow for SIDBI, which is the other city that appears in these options.

The correct answer is B, 1992. The Securities and Exchange Board of India was first constituted in April 1988 as a non-statutory body with advisory functions, and it received statutory powers through the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act 1992, passed in the year the securities scam made a strong market regulator unavoidable. Option A, 1988, is the year of its creation rather than of its statutory powers, and is the most tempting wrong choice; a question that asks when SEBI was set up has 1988 as the answer, so read the stem carefully. Option C, 1995, is wrong, although an amendment of that year widened the Board powers; it is also close to the founding of the National Stock Exchange, which began trading in 1994. Option D, 2002, is wrong and belongs to a different statute, the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act of that year, which is a Reserve Bank subject.

The correct answer is C, 2013. PFRDA was first created in 2003 by a resolution of the Government as an interim authority to oversee the new defined contribution pension arrangement, and it ran the National Pension System for a decade without a statute; the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Act 2013 gave it statutory standing. Option A, 2003, is therefore the year of its creation as an interim body and is the obvious trap in this question. Option B, 2008, is wrong; that year the National Pension System was opened to the public and the central recordkeeping agency and pension funds were appointed, but no Act was passed. Option D, 2016, is wrong and belongs to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, under which the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India began on 1 October 2016. A clean way to remember the sequence of statutes is 1934, 1992, 1999, 2013 and 2016 for RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA and IBBI.

The correct answer is B, the Securities Appellate Tribunal. The Tribunal was set up under the SEBI Act and sits at Mumbai; since the Finance Act 2017 it also hears appeals against orders of IRDAI and of PFRDA, so one tribunal now serves three regulators. An appeal from the Tribunal goes to the Supreme Court on a question of law. Option A is wrong; the National Company Law Tribunal hears company law matters and corporate insolvency under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, with appeals to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal. Option C is wrong; the Debt Recovery Tribunal recovers the dues of banks and financial institutions and deals with the insolvency of individuals and partnership firms under the Code, with appeals to the Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal. Option D is wrong; a High Court may be approached in writ jurisdiction in exceptional cases, but the statutory appeal is to the Securities Appellate Tribunal.