The Jio Platforms share sale is widely reported to open on 21 October. If that date holds, the company will have to publish its final offer document and a price band within days. Until then, the only official document on the table is the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) that Jio Platforms filed with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), dated 19 June 2026.

Here is what that filing says, what it leaves blank, and what people who hold Reliance Industries shares should understand about the shareholder quota. This is an explainer of the documents, not a recommendation to bid in the issue or to buy any share.

What the draft prospectus confirms

The issue is a fresh issue of up to 27 crore equity shares, each with a face value of Rs 10. There is no offer for sale, which means no existing shareholder is selling shares in the IPO. The money raised goes to the company.

Jio Platforms says it will use the net proceeds to prepay, in full or in part, some borrowings of Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL), its main telecom subsidiary, and for general corporate purposes. The draft leaves the rupee amounts blank.

The ownership table is the clearest part of the filing. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), the promoter, held 593.78 crore shares, or 66.43%, on the date of the draft. Jaadhu Holdings, an affiliate of Meta Platforms, held 9.98%, Google International held 7.73% and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia held 2.31%.

The filing names nine book running lead managers: Kotak Mahindra Capital, Morgan Stanley India, BofA Securities India, Axis Capital, BNP Paribas, Citigroup Global Markets India, CLSA India, DAM Capital Advisors and 360 ONE WAM. KFin Technologies is the registrar, the firm that handles allotment and refunds.

How the shares will be split

After two reserved portions are set aside, the rest of the issue, called the net issue, follows SEBI's usual book-building split. Not more than 50% goes to qualified institutional buyers, not less than 15% to non-institutional investors, and not less than 35% to retail individual investors. Every bidder other than anchor investors must apply through ASBA, where the bid amount stays blocked in your own bank account until allotment, or through a UPI mandate.

The two reserved portions are for eligible employees and for eligible RIL shareholders. The draft does not say how many shares either will get. The size, the price and the share of the issue are all left as blanks.

The RIL shareholder quota, in the filing's own words

The DRHP defines an eligible RIL shareholder as an individual or Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) who is a public equity shareholder of Reliance Industries "as on the date of the filing of the Red Herring Prospectus". That filing date is what decides eligibility. It is not the day bidding opens, and it is not the June date of the draft.

The maximum bid in the RIL shareholder portion is Rs 2 lakh per shareholder. People bidding in that portion can also bid in the retail or non-institutional category, and the filing says such bids will not be treated as multiple bids. If the shareholder portion is not fully taken up, the unsold shares move first to the employee portion and then to the retail and non-institutional portions.

The draft does not set a minimum holding, so it does not say how many RIL shares you need. Jio Platforms has not publicly announced when it will file the red herring prospectus, so nobody can yet say which day's shareholding counts.

What is reported but not confirmed

The 21 October opening date, the rupee size of the issue and any price band are not in an official document yet, and reports over the past week have put these numbers in different places. The DRHP says the price band and minimum bid lot will be announced at least two working days before the issue opens. Until that announcement and the red herring prospectus appear, treat every figure as unconfirmed.

The general timetable is set by SEBI's rules rather than by any report. Anchor investors, if the company uses them, bid one working day before the issue opens, and the bidding window for everyone else must stay open for at least three working days. Since SEBI's T+3 rule, shares are listed on the exchanges three working days after the issue closes, and money blocked for unsuccessful bids is released before listing day.

The draft also says the price will be set by the company and its lead managers through book building, and warns that it "should not be considered to be indicative of the market price" of the shares after listing.

How to check for yourself

The DRHP is public on SEBI's website under public issues. When the red herring prospectus is filed, it will appear on the BSE and NSE websites along with the price band notice, and allotment status will later be available on the registrar's website and the exchanges' sites.

A big IPO also draws fraudsters. During World Investor Week, SEBI and US regulators warned investors about friendship scams and people posing as officials. A genuine IPO application never asks you to transfer money to a person; bids go through your bank's ASBA facility or a UPI mandate.

For a sense of how recent offers went, see our reports on AceVector's IPO price of Rs 32 and Moneyview's listing at Rs 55 against its Rs 34 issue price. Those were far smaller issues, and past listings say nothing about how any future one will trade.