Under the Modi government, yet another institution stands discreditedthis time, SEBI, the market regulator, whose role has come under serious scrutiny after the exposure of a massive market manipulation scam involving American high-frequency trading firm Jane Street. This firm, notorious globally for exploiting derivatives markets, allegedly made over ₹43,289 crore in gross profits in India’s Futures and Options (F&O) segment between January 2023 and March 2025. Of this, ₹36,502 crore is now considered illicit profit by SEBI, which acted only in July 2025, after over four years of regulatory silence. SEBI’s belated 105-page interim order banned Jane Street and four affiliates from trading and froze ₹4,844 crore just a fraction of the money siphoned. This action came after examining only 18 days of trading data, implying the actual scale of manipulation could be far greater.
Despite repeated warnings from Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi to regulate the volatile F&O market and protect small investors, the Modi government and SEBI took no action. As a result, lakhs of retail investors lost money, while Jane Street exploited price manipulation techniques such as “marking the close” in equity markets to benefit in options trading. Stocks like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and Axis Bank were targeted, and on one single day January 17, 2024 the firm allegedly made ₹735 crore in profit. According to SEBI’s own 2024 report, 93% of retail investors lost money in derivatives trading over FY2021–FY2024, with ₹52,400 crore lost in FY2024 alone. Yet this massive manipulation went unchecked for years.
Jane Street began operations in India in 2020 by setting up two local entities and routing trades through foreign portfolio investors from Hong Kong and Singapore. Its trades manipulated the market in both the cash and F&O segments, exploiting legal and regulatory loopholes while SEBI looked away. Worse still, nearly 90% of the profits were quietly repatriated abroad. SEBI issued only a caution letter in February 2025, and NSE closed its internal probe in April 2025, allegedly relying on Jane Street’s Indian partner Nuvama Wealth’s explanations. It wasn’t until July that any real action was taken, long after the damage was done.
This raises serious questions: Who authorized Jane Street’s massive capital inflows and high-frequency operations in India? Why were red flags ignored despite the firm admitting in a U.S. court in 2023 that it made $1 billion in India that year? Why did SEBI, NSE, the Finance Ministry, and agencies like ED, CBI, and SFIO remain silent? How much money did Jane Street move abroad, and why wasn’t it taxed despite India’s double taxation agreement with the U.S. allowing such income to escape Indian taxation? And what explains the inaction of SEBI under Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch, who held a senior regulatory role throughout this period?
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, who frequently projected themselves as stock market experts during the 2024 elections, have gone silent. The broader picture shows a disturbing pattern where foreign speculators enrich themselves while retail investors lose their life savings—and institutions meant to protect them remain inactive or complicit. Whether it was the Adani-Hindenburg episode or this Jane Street scandal, the trend is clear: cronyism thrives while ordinary Indians bear the losses. And SEBI, the supposed watchdog of Indian markets, appears more like a gatekeeper for the powerful.
