On August 19, the regulator issued an order against a foreign portfolio investor and a domestic broker for alleged manipulation during the Closing Auction Session on the BSE Sensex expiry of August 13. According to the order, aggressive orders in constituent stocks distorted the Indicative Equilibrium Price and benefitted their expiry day options positions. SEBI impounded the alleged gains and imposed interim restraints just within six days of the trades. Whatever the ultimate merits of the allegations, the speed of the response is striking.

Speed Of Regulatory Action

The significance goes beyond this particular case. It establishes that SEBI possesses the technology, data, expertise, and institutional capacity to analyse sophisticated trading and act almost immediately.

That makes its struggles in its handling of other serious market misconduct difficult to fathom.

Consider another major case involving a global quantitative trading firm. SEBI’s own order records that its investigation into trading, starting from January 2023, began only in April 2024, and SEBI’s interim order was finally issued only in July 2025; that too by a department that doesn’t deal with market manipulation. The order alleged manipulation of index levels through coordinated trading across cash, futures, and options markets, directing the impounding of a humongous ₹5,000 crore in alleged unlawful gains from four trading days. The foreign trading firm has challenged the action.

Questions Over Delayed Action

The issue is not whether SEBI eventually acted. The issue is why an allegation involving........

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