The Nifty 50 is one of the principal benchmarks for India’s equity market, bringing together 50 major companies across financial services, technology, energy, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, industrials and other important sectors of the economy. As of March 2026, the index represented approximately 53.7% of the free-float market capitalisation of stocks listed on the National Stock Exchange.
The audit market beneath the index has a structure that differs markedly from those of many other major blue-chip indices. Joint statutory audits are relatively common, particularly among banks and government-controlled companies, while Indian audit firms outside the Big Four networks retain a substantial share of the market.
The table below provides a company-by-company view of the current statutory auditors of the Nifty 50, the first financial year of the current engagement and the latest audit fee or auditor-remuneration figure identified.
It can be sorted by company, auditor, since and audit fee.
Data checked as of 30 September 2026. Audit fees are presented in Indian rupees and generally relate to the latest disclosed financial year. Where an auditor changed for FY2026 but the latest available fee relates to the predecessor firm, this is noted in the underlying data.
Nifty 50 Audit Market Share
The Big Four audit 68% of the Nifty 50 — but India is a much more fragmented audit market
Deloitte has the largest market share in the Nifty 50, with a current audit role at 12 of the 50 companies, or 24% of the index.
KPMG’s position in India requires some explanation. The audit opinions are not signed by a KPMG-branded firm. Instead, B S R & Co. LLP appears as a current statutory auditor at nine Nifty 50 companies, or 18% of the index. India’s National Financial Reporting Authority describes BSR & Affiliates as a registered network of eight audit firms and a sub-licensee of KPMG International. For the purposes of Big4News’ network-level market-share analysis, B S R & Co. LLP is therefore classified under KPMG, while the company-level table retains the legal audit-firm name.
EY-affiliated firms also have a current role at nine companies, or 18%, while PwC network firms audit four, or 8%.
The remaining 16 companies — 32% of the Nifty 50 — are not audited by a Big Four firm. That is notable in the context of a broader Indian government effort to strengthen the country’s domestic audit and professional-services sector. In 2025, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs established an inter-ministerial group to examine how to develop the domestic auditing and consulting ecosystem and opened a consultation on allowing larger Indian multidisciplinary professional-services firms to emerge.
The initiative aims to address structural and regulatory barriers that have limited the ability of Indian firms to achieve the scale of the global networks, rather than reserving audit mandates for domestic firms. Alongside this, the National Financial Reporting Authority has introduced audit-practice toolkits and nationwide outreach programmes specifically aimed at improving the capabilities and audit quality of small and medium-sized firms.
The Nifty 50 data therefore shows that local and mid-tier firms already have a meaningful foothold at the top of India’s listed-company market, even as policymakers look for ways to help Indian firms build the scale and capabilities needed to compete for larger and more complex engagements.
Joint audits are a significant feature of the Nifty 50
Another striking feature of the Indian data is the prevalence of joint auditors.
Sixteen of the 50 companies in the dataset have more than one current statutory or statutory central auditor.
They range from two-firm arrangements at companies including Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank to much larger audit panels at some state-controlled businesses.
State Bank of India, for example, has ten statutory central auditors in the current dataset. NTPC has six, ONGC five and Power Grid four.
This partly reflects the different regulatory architecture of the Indian market. Reserve Bank of India rules require joint audits by at least two firms for regulated entities above specified asset thresholds, while allowing progressively larger auditor panels as asset size increases.
As a result, an Indian audit mandate cannot always be viewed in the same way as a single-firm engagement in markets such as the UK.
Disclosed fees range from ₹5 million to more than ₹3 billion
The median disclosed amount is approximately ₹43.65 million, or ₹4.37 crore.
Among the largest figures in the dataset are:
State Bank of India — ₹3.174 billion (₹317.4 crore)
Bharti Airtel — ₹569 million (₹56.9 crore)
Reliance Industries — ₹370 million (₹37 crore)
Infosys — ₹290 million (₹29 crore)
JSW Steel — ₹200 million (₹20 crore)
Tata Consumer Products — ₹164 million (₹16.4 crore)
At the other end of the range, Bharat Electronics reports an audit fee of ₹5 million, or ₹50 lakh.
The wide spread reflects not only differences in company size and complexity but also the structure of Indian audits. Large banking and state-controlled groups can involve multiple statutory and branch auditors, making direct fee comparisons particularly sensitive to the way each issuer defines its disclosure.
Auditor rotation is clearly visible across the index
The Nifty 50 also contains a substantial number of recently changed audit arrangements.
At 18 companies, at least one current auditor first took up the engagement in FY2025 or FY2026. Ten companies have an auditor whose first financial year is FY2026.
Recent changes include Price Waterhouse Chartered Accountants LLP at Maruti Suzuki, Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP at UltraTech Cement, S.R. Batliboi & Co. LLP at Max Healthcare and B S R & Co. LLP joining the audit of HDFC Bank.
The oldest current first-engagement years in the dataset date to FY2017, including current audit relationships at Asian Paints, Grasim Industries, HDFC Life, Cipla and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, as well as KKC & Associates’ joint engagement at UltraTech Cement.
This relatively compressed tenure profile is consistent with India’s mandatory auditor-rotation regime. Under the Companies Act framework, audit firms covered by the rotation requirements are generally limited to two consecutive five-year terms. Separate RBI requirements impose a three-year continuous tenure for statutory auditors of banks and other covered financial institutions.
About the data
Auditor identifies the statutory auditor or auditors currently responsible for the company’s external audit in the late-September 2026 dataset. Because joint audits are common in India, more than one firm may be shown.
For the market-share analysis, Deloitte Haskins & Sells firms are grouped under Deloitte; B S R & Co. LLP and other BSR entities are grouped under KPMG; S.R. Batliboi/SRBC firms are grouped under EY; and Price Waterhouse firms are grouped under PwC. NFRA describes B S R & Affiliates as a registered Indian network whose firms are sub-licensees of KPMG International.
Since means the first financial year for which the current audit firm held the external audit engagement, rather than the date on which shareholders formally approved or subsequently reappointed the auditor.
Where several firms form a current audit panel and their appointment dates differ, the relevant years are shown separately where practicable. No single “Since” date is assigned to a grouped panel where the auditors have staggered starting years.
Audit fee is the latest identified amount disclosed by the company for statutory audit or audit services. Tax, consulting and other non-audit services are excluded where the issuer’s disclosure allows them to be separated.
A small number of companies disclose a broader auditor-remuneration category rather than a pure statutory audit fee. These figures have been retained where no narrower figure was available and are identified in the underlying dataset.
Where a new auditor began in FY2026 but the latest published annual report covers FY2025, the fee may relate to the outgoing auditor rather than the firm now holding the engagement. Those cases are specifically flagged rather than attributing the predecessor’s fee to the incoming firm.
The research was checked primarily against company annual reports, auditor reports, AGM documentation, stock-exchange filings, C&AG and RBI appointment disclosures and other primary company or regulatory sources.
Data checked as of 30 September 2026.
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