In India, people close to a company - its promoters, directors, senior executives, and their immediate relatives - are "insiders." Because they may have access to non-public information, SEBI's Prohibition of Insider Trading (PIT) Regulations require them to publicly disclose every time they buy, sell, or pledge shares. These are legitimate, legal transactions (not illegal insider trading) - but they must be reported to the exchange within a few days, so other investors can see when a promoter is buying more or a director is selling. VIGIL tracks all such disclosures filed on NSE.
Open the live VIGIL Insider Trading view for the full, filterable table of disclosures.
Who has to disclose?
SEBI's PIT Regulations define several categories of people who must report their trades:
- Promoters - the founders or controlling shareholders (e.g. the Ambani family for Reliance, the Premji family for Wipro), typically holding a large share stake and closely involved in the company.
- Promoter Group - entities related to the promoters: family trusts, holding companies, and investment vehicles (e.g. Azim Premji Trust, Prazim Traders for Wipro).
- Directors - members of the Board, both executive (MD/CEO) and independent.
- Key Managerial Personnel (KMP) - senior executives not on the board but in critical positions: CFO, Company Secretary, and other board-designated officers.
- Employees / Designated Employees - employees who may access sensitive information (finance, legal, strategy, M&A); companies maintain an internal list of "designated persons."
- Immediate Relatives - spouse, parents, siblings, and children of any of the above.
Source: SEBI (PIT) Regulations 2015, Regulation 2(1)(d) & Schedule B.
What transactions are disclosed?
| Type | What it means | Signal |
|---|---|---|
| Buy / Acquisition | The insider purchased shares from the market or via a private deal | Often a positive sign - the insider is putting their own money in |
| Sell / Disposal | The insider sold shares on the market or transferred them out | Could be personal, tax planning, or profit booking - context matters |
| Pledge | Shares given as collateral for a loan; ownership stays with the insider | High pledge = risk. If the price falls, the lender can force-sell the pledged shares |
| Pledge Revoke | Pledged shares released - the loan was repaid or collateral freed | Positive - the insider is reducing leverage |
| Pledge Invoke | The lender has seized the pledged shares (the insider could not repay) | Serious red flag - forced selling by lenders typically crashes the price |
When must insiders disclose?
Initial Disclosure (Regulation 7(1)): when a person becomes a promoter, director, or KMP, they must disclose all existing holdings within 7 days of joining.
Continual Disclosure (Regulation 7(2)): every time an insider's trades in a quarter cross Rs 10 lakh in value, they must file within 2 trading days; the company then notifies the exchange within 2 trading days of receiving the disclosure.
So records appear within roughly 2-4 business days of the actual transaction. The "Broadcast Date" is when NSE published the disclosure - the date VIGIL uses for sorting. Source: SEBI Circular - Regulation 7 Disclosure Formats (Feb 2021).
What each disclosure captures
| Field | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Company & Symbol | Which listed company the disclosure is about |
| Acquirer Name | The person or entity who made the transaction |
| Person Category | Promoter, Director, KMP, Employee, or Immediate Relative |
| Transaction Type | Buy, Sell, Pledge, Pledge Revoke, or Pledge Invoke |
| No. of Securities & Value | How many shares were traded and the total rupee value |
| % Holding Before & After | The insider's shareholding percentage before and after |
| Mode of Acquisition | Market purchase, off-market deal, ESOP exercise, etc. |
| Transaction Date | When the actual buy / sell / pledge happened |
| Broadcast Date | When NSE published the disclosure (used for sorting) |
Why investors pay attention
- Promoter buying = skin in the game. When a promoter spends their own money to buy more on the open market, it is a strong vote of confidence.
- Large insider selling = worth investigating. Insiders sell for many reasons (taxes, diversification), but sustained or unusually large selling by multiple insiders can sometimes precede bad news. Context matters: selling after a big run-up differs from selling before earnings.
- Pledge build-up = hidden risk. Heavy promoter pledging creates forced-selling risk - if the stock drops below a threshold, the lender can sell the pledged shares, creating a downward spiral. Several well-known crashes have been linked to high promoter pledging.
- Cluster activity = something is happening. Multiple insiders at one company all buying (or all selling) around the same time is a stronger signal than any single trade.
Important caveats
- Not all selling is bad, not all buying is good. ESOPs commonly show up as insider "buying" (exercising options at a discount) followed by immediate selling at market price - that is compensation, not conviction. Promoter-group restructuring (shares moved between family trusts) shows up as large buys and sells but does not change overall promoter holding.
- Rs 10 lakh threshold. Only trades above Rs 10 lakh in aggregate per quarter need disclosure; smaller insider transactions may not appear.
- 2-4 day delay. By the time a disclosure appears, the transaction happened 2-4 business days ago. This data is for monitoring patterns, not real-time trading signals.
- Some categories are blank. About 18% of records have no person category (the XBRL filing omitted the field); the acquirer name is still available in all cases.
Coverage
Data from February 2024 onwards, covering 1,370+ unique companies (all NSE-listed equities), 31,000+ disclosures and growing, synced from NSE multiple times daily. The source is NSE's PIT disclosure system, where companies file XBRL documents under SEBI Regulation 7(2); VIGIL downloads, parses, and stores every disclosure with filters for company, category, transaction type, and index membership.
References and key concepts
SEBI: PIT Regulations 2015 (consolidated, Mar 2025) · Regulation 7 Disclosure Formats (Feb 2021). NSE: PIT Disclosures Portal.
- UPSI - Unpublished Price Sensitive Information: anything that could materially affect the stock price (earnings, M&A, regulatory orders) and is not yet public.
- Trading Window - companies close a trading window before results; designated persons cannot trade during it, which is why clusters of trades appear just after results.
- PIT - Prohibition of Insider Trading, the SEBI framework governing all of the above.
Open the live VIGIL Insider Trading view on TIGZIG, or see the related Promoter Pledge and Takeover (SAST) pages and all VIGIL data sources.