Jane Street saga: Rahul Gandhi targets Modi govt over SEBI’s crackdown, says investors are being pushed to brink of ruin

Rahul Gandhi, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government on Monday over Sebi's explosive crackdown on Jane Street that has sent tremors through India's Rs 6.2 lakh crore capital market infrastructure

"I clearly stated in 2024 - the F&O market has become a playground for 'big players,' and small investors' pockets are continuously being drained. Now SEBI itself is admitting that Jane Street manipulated thousands of crores. Why did SEBI remain silent for so long?" said Rahul Gandhi in a post on X.

"At whose behest was the Modi government sitting with its eyes closed? And how many more big sharks are still shorting retail investors? In every case, it’s clear - the Modi government is making the rich richer and pushing ordinary investors to the brink of ruin," added the LoP.




What is the Jane Street controversy?
Jane Street is a well-known proprietary trading firm based in the US, active in more than 45 countries. SEBI recently accused the firm of manipulating stock and index prices in India to benefit its options trades. According to SEBI, Jane Street made huge profits by first buying stocks to push prices up and then selling them off later in the day to make money from falling prices in the options segment.

The regulator has frozen over Rs 4,800 crore in profits linked to these trades and banned Jane Street and its India arm from participating in the market. SEBI has also frozen their bank and demat accounts as part of an ongoing investigation.

Four entities tied to Jane Street Group (JS Group)—JSI Investments, JSI2 Investments, Jane Street Singapore and Jane Street Asia Trading —have been prohibited from dealing in securities, directly or indirectly.



“JS Group is not a good faith actor that can be, or deserves to be, trusted,” Sebi whole-time member Ananth Narayan said in his 105-page, ex-parte, interim order issued on July 3. “The integrity of the market, and the faith of millions of small investors and traders, can no longer be held hostage to the machinations of such an untrustworthy actor.”

The regulator examined Jane Street’s trades in India between January 1, 2023, and March 31, 2025. During this period, it made over Rs 43,289 crore ($5.07 billion) profit in index options and Rs 7,687 crore ($900 million) in losses across stock futures, index futures and cash markets on the NSE.

Founded in New York in 1999, Jane Street is a prominent quantitative trading firm with offices in all the key financial centres of the world. It uses complex algorithms developed in-house to execute high-frequency trades.

The regulator’s finding is that the NSE’s Bank Nifty Index —comprising the stocks of India’s top dozen lenders—had prima facie been manipulated in a complex and illegal manner aided by the JS Group’s immense trading, financial and technological prowess. Jane Street would drive up prices with heavy buying in the morning and send them down through a selling spree later in the day, according to Sebi. It also sought to push index levels down with heavy sell orders close to the option expiry, the regulator said.