SAT asks SEBI to respond to Jane Street in three weeks

The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) asked the capital markets regulator to respond to Jane Street’s appeal in three weeks, after the latter challenged the SEBI interim order on index manipulation.

In the first hearing conducted on September 9, Jane Street alleged SEBI’s initial report upon receipt of NSE’s analysis did not show any case of manipulative trades in December 2024 . However, after the receipt of a complaint from a “UAE based hedge fund manager,” SEBI ordered a re-examination in February 2025, which led to the regulator coming out with the interim order alleging manipulative trades. 

It was “contradictorily concluded that appellants 1 and 3 (Jane Street Group companies) appear to be engaging in trading activities which were primarily manipulated,” said Darius Khambata, appearing for Jane Street. In this context, Mr. Khambata cited correspondence between NSE and SEBI, complaint letter of the UAE-based fund manager, copies of complete order logs and trade logs, and list of other relevant documents which Jane Street had mentioned in its plea. “The default rule is all relevant material must be disclosed and disclosure cannot be restricted only to the material relied on by the authority. So, if you have in your possession all this, you cannot say I have cherry-picked only the parts I want to rely on,” Mr. Khambata said in his arguments.

Responding to the arguements, Gaurav Joshi, who represented SEBI said, ”the investigation is at a very critical stage. We are not going to give every single document.” Explaining why a show-cause notice was not issued to Jane Street, he said it was not issued as SEBI was still investigating the matter. ”The period may be significantly larger. The scope of the show-cause notice may enlarge significantly more than what is pointed out in the interim order,” Mr. Joshi argued. 

The SAT accordingly directed SEBI to respond to Jane Street within three weeks. The tribunal will next hear the case on November 18.