SEBI’s Ex-Chief Madhabi Buch Denies Regulatory Oversight In Jane Street Case
The first woman to lead the regulatory body, demitted office early this year
The former Chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Madhabi Puri Buch, has refuted claims of regulatory failure in handling the Jane Street matter during her tenure.
She clarified that SEBI identified index manipulation by Jane Street and initiated several actions, including a cease-and-desist order between April 2024 and February 2025.
Jane Street is a proprietary trading firm that trades its capital rather than managing client funds. The firm allegedly profited Rs.32,681 crore by manipulating the stock market and repatriating the amount overseas.
In her statement, Buch said, “During that period, SEBI constituted a multi-disciplinary team of officials to conduct a comprehensive examination. The thorough investigation led to the detailed findings that form the basis of the order.” She added that the 3 July 2025 interim order ‘clearly documented’ the sequence of events.
The former chairperson maintained, “Parallelly, SEBI made various policy-level interventions in October 2024 and instructed the National Stock Exchange (NSE) to issue a cease-and-desist letter to Jane Street in February 2025.”
Meanwhile, Tuhin Kanta Pandey, the current chairperson, said the market regulator would strengthen the surveillance and monitoring of players and derivative trades.
He added that SEBI had the power to act against manipulative trading activities in matters related to the New York-headquartered trading major Jane Street Group. This was evident from the interim order it issued to ban the global giant from the Indian stock market. Maintaining that there was no requirement for enforcement and surveillance, he said, “The order speaks for itself.”
Pandey remarked, “Within the regulations we have brought it and only enforcement and surveillance can help.” He highlighted that a lot of analytical work went into the Jane Street case, as manipulative activities could be done in several ways.