The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has reserved its order until 21 October on an appeal by US-based market maker Jane Street, bringing an end to verbal arguments in its ongoing legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) over access to key evidence.
The dispute stems from Sebi’s July 2025 ex-parte interim order, which barred Jane Street from the Indian securities market and directed it to disgorge ₹4,843 crore in alleged unlawful gains.
The regulator accused the hedge fund of manipulating the Bank Nifty index by using trades in cash and futures markets to artificially support the index while building large short positions in index options.
‘Sebi withholding data’
Arguing before a SAT bench comprising presiding officer Justice (Retd.) P. S. Dinesh Kumar and Technical Members Dr. Dheeraj Bhatnagar and Meera Swarup, the hedge fund contended that Sebi has withheld crucial documents and data used to build its case.
Jane Street’s demands include trade and order logs with counterparty details such as trade quantity, price, and execution time, along with correspondence between Sebi and NSE, among other things.
Jane Street argued that these documents are essential to its defence against market manipulation charges, as they could clarify why Sebi launched a fresh investigation after two previous reviews cleared the firm.
The appeal highlights a November 2024 probe by the NSE and a December 2024 review by Sebi’s Integrated Surveillance Department (ISD), both of which reportedly found no proof that Jane Street’s trades influenced index prices to profit its options positions, recommending against further action.
Regulator rejects demands
However, lawyers representing the market regulator have argued that counterparty trades and order data are not relevant to the allegations against Jane Street, and that at this stage of the investigation, Sebi is legally bound to only share information it relied upon to pass the interim order.
“Where it is relevant and where it has a meaning, we give. But we also have to understand that the data we are sharing here is huge, because these are huge trades. Also, the counterparty has no relevance,” a lawyer representing Sebi said at the hearing.
“They want the data of counterparties with whom they have traded, which is irrelevant because that is absolutely not the allegation here. That is why in the responses that we have given to their demands, we have said that counterparty data has no relevance in the precedence,” he added.
