India's capital market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has released new rules for consent order process.

The new rules will still allow the regulator to have discretion to deal with various offences by through on payment of a fee. The regulator pointed out that the window of discretion will only be available to offences committed two years prior to submission of application to SEBI for a consent order.

The regulator said, "Certain defaults including insider trading, front running, failure to make an open offer, redress investor grievances and respond to the summons issued by SEBI, are excluded from the consent process."

The regulator had released the consent settlement system in April, 2007 in order to reduce its costs as well as time and efforts relating to enforcement actions. The regulator has said that serious fraudulent and unfair trade practices in the capital markets will also be excluded from the consent order.

Under the new guidelines, if an applicant has obtained more than two consent orders, the applicant will be barred from applying for the three years from the date of the last order. SEBI has now prohibited monetary settlement for dealing with a list of serious offences.