The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a petition challenging the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi) approval for the National Stock Exchange’s (NSE) initial public offering (IPO), clearing a fresh legal hurdle on the exchange’s path to listing.
A single bench of Justice Jasmeet Singh refused to admit the plea filed by 72-year-old former judicial officer K.C. Aggarwal, observing that both Sebi and NSE are based in Mumbai and that the no-objection certificate (NOC) for the IPO was granted there.
“This court does not have territorial jurisdiction to entertain this petition… The NOC has been granted at Mumbai. Hence, the petition in this court will not lie,” the bench remarked while dismissing the case.
Aggarwal had challenged Sebi’s 30 January approval for the NSE’s IPO, alleging violations in the exchange’s handling of corporate action adjustments (CAA), a framework to ensure “value neutrality” in derivative trading when companies announce bonus issues, stock splits and extraordinary dividends.
Under the CAA mechanism, adjustments are made to ensure that traders in futures and options neither gain nor lose unfairly due to actions undertaken by listed companies.
The petitioner alleged that the NSE violated this framework by adjusting only prices and directly debiting dividend-equivalent amounts from derivative traders’ accounts, instead of adjusting both price and quantity. He argued that dividends legally belong only to shareholders under the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act and not to derivative traders.
Aggarwal claimed that his complaints were closed without a proper hearing and that Sebi upheld the NSE’s actions without an independent review. He alleged that his requests under the Right to Information seeking details of the debited amounts were rejected, creating what he described as an information vacuum.
The plea sought to restrain Sebi from allowing the NSE to proceed with its IPO until the matter was fully investigated.
‘No locus standi’
In response, the NSE and Sebi argued before the court that the petitioner lacked locus standi and that the plea was an attempt to stall the IPO process, which involves the interests of over 850,000 investors. They also submitted that the petitioner had already filed multiple similar petitions against the NSE in different forums.
With the high court declining to admit the petition on jurisdictional grounds, the immediate challenge in Delhi has come to an end, removing a potential roadblock to the NSE’s listing plan.
The NSE IPO has been one of India’s most anticipated and delayed public issues. The exchange first filed its draft papers in 2016, but regulatory scrutiny, governance concerns and the high-profile co-location case stalled its listing for years. Questions around technology systems and compliance processes also delayed regulatory clearance.
After multiple reviews, Sebi granted its NOC in January 2026, allowing the NSE to formally restart the IPO process, appoint merchant bankers and legal advisers, and begin drafting listing documents.
