Supreme Court lets NSE co-location PC Act case against Ramkrishna proceed

The Enforcement Action

The Supreme Court on 15 September 2026 declined to interfere with a Delhi High Court judgment that had refused to quash the criminal case against former National Stock Exchange (NSE) Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Chitra Ramkrishna in the co-location matter. A Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran held that her contention that she should not be treated as a public servant under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 could be raised before the trial court. The order lets the prosecution, based on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) chargesheet, proceed.

The judgment the Supreme Court left undisturbed is the Delhi High Court's decision dated 9 July 2026 in W.P.(CRL) 3343/2023, delivered by a Bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja. Ramkrishna had asked the High Court to declare Sections 2(b) and 2(c)(viii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act unconstitutional, to quash the cognizance order dated 18 July 2023, and to quash the sanction letters dated 15 November 2022 and 11 February 2023. The High Court declined every limb of that relief.

The underlying matter is the CBI case registered as FIR No. RC/AC1/2018/A0011 dated 28 May 2018, arising from the alleged abuse of the NSE's co-location facility. Ramkrishna, Anand Subramanian (then a senior NSE officer described in the record as Group Operating Officer and Advisor to the Managing Director) and Sanjay Gupta of OPG Securities are among those named in the CBI's chargesheets. The allegations remain to be tested; a chargesheet contains allegations, not findings of guilt.

Ramkrishna's position, as recorded in the High Court order, is that the NSE is a private, profit-making company and that her duties were confined to corporate governance and the management of the exchange's business rather than any public duty. That defence is part of the record and remains open to her at trial.

How the Scheme Worked

The co-location facility at the heart of the case lets trading members place their servers physically close to the exchange's systems to reduce the time it takes for orders and market data to travel. According to the case as summarised in the Delhi High Court order, the alleged misconduct ran through the period 2010 to 2014 and turned on giving one broking firm an unfair head start over the rest of the market.

The order records the allegation that certain brokers received advance notification of when servers would be switched on, and were pointed toward the "technologically latest and least crowded servers". OPG Securities is alleged to have been enabled to be, in the order's phrasing, "first to login" and to receive the data feed ahead of others, including access to backup servers described as carrying "zero load and better hardware". In a market where advantage is measured in fractions of a second, such preferential access is said to have let the favoured member act on price information before competitors could.

The procedural history set out in the order is detailed. The FIR was registered on 28 May 2018. The main chargesheet was filed on 21 April 2022, invoking Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code together with Sections 13(1)(d) read with 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, followed by a supplementary chargesheet on 18 August 2022. The NSE Board granted a conditional sanction on 19 June 2022, and sanction orders were issued by the company secretary on 15 November 2022 and again on 11 February 2023. The trial court took the sanction on record in February and May 2023, and on 18 July 2023 the Special Judge (PC Act) took cognizance and summoned the petitioner.

Ramkrishna challenged that chain before the High Court, arguing among other things that authority to remove her vested in shareholders rather than the Board, which she said made the Board's sanction incompetent, and pointing to an earlier bail-stage observation that the NSE is not a public authority. The High Court rejected these contentions on the preliminary questions before it.

The Law Invoked

The CBI chargesheet, per the High Court order, rests on Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, which addresses criminal conspiracy, alongside Sections 13(1)(d) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, which deal with criminal misconduct by a public servant and its punishment. The order also references Sections 201 and 204 IPC (causing disappearance of evidence) and Section 420 IPC (cheating), and Sections 43 and 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which concern unauthorised access to computer systems.

The constitutional challenge focused on the definitions in the Prevention of Corruption Act. Section 2(b) defines "public duty" and Section 2(c)(viii) defines "public servant" to include a person holding an office by virtue of which they are required to perform a public duty. Section 19 sets out the requirement of prior sanction to prosecute. Ramkrishna sought to have the definitional provisions struck down as vague and as violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.

The High Court also referred to the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956, including its provisions on the recognition and regulation of stock exchanges, in reasoning that a recognised stock exchange performs functions in the public interest. It held that the definition of public duty was not vague and, adopting what it called a purposive approach aligned with the Act's object of widening the reach of anti-corruption law, that Ramkrishna's office carried a public duty.

What Happens Next

With the Supreme Court declining to interfere, the case returns to the Special Judge (PC Act), where the trial will proceed on the CBI's chargesheets. The Delhi High Court expressly left it open to Ramkrishna to argue again, at trial, that she was not discharging a public duty, and the Supreme Court echoed that the point can be raised there. The prosecution must still prove its allegations; the accused are entitled to contest them.

Orders passed at this stage decide preliminary and jurisdictional questions, not guilt. A chargesheet contains allegations, not findings of guilt; the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and due process continues. The remedies available in criminal proceedings, including at the conclusion of trial, remain open to the parties.

Because the matter is sub judice, the evidence has not been weighed by these orders and no outcome should be assumed from the fact that the case is allowed to continue. What has happened is procedural: a challenge to the maintainability of the prosecution has failed, and the trial court retains the questions of fact and law for decision.

What It Means

For ordinary investors, the significance of the ruling is less about any single individual and more about the legal principle the court affirmed: that those running market infrastructure of national importance can be held to public-duty standards. A recognised stock exchange is not, in the High Court's words, "an ordinary commercial venture"; it performs "very vital economic functions in the public interest" under the oversight of the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

The co-location matter is a reminder that the integrity of the trading system depends on equal access to price and speed. Retail investors cannot inspect an exchange's server room, but they can rely on the regulatory chain: exchanges are supervised by SEBI, and intermediaries who deal with the public must be registered. Anyone can verify a broker or adviser on SEBI's public registers at sebi.gov.in and on the exchanges' member lists before entrusting money.

Registration is not a guarantee against wrongdoing, but it places an entity within a system of audit, inspection and grievance redress. The documented pattern in market-structure cases, that advantages hidden in technical plumbing can matter as much as any headline product, is a useful lens for investors assessing where their orders actually go and on what terms.

FAQ

The orders described here are, as the courts have stressed, preliminary; per the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court they do not determine guilt, and the CBI's allegations remain to be proven at trial.

Does this mean the people named are guilty?

No. A chargesheet contains allegations, not findings of guilt; the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and due process continues. The Delhi High Court ruling and the Supreme Court order both concern a preliminary jurisdictional question, not the merits of the CBI's allegations, which remain to be tested at trial.

What exactly did the Supreme Court decide?

On 15 September 2026, a Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran declined to interfere with the Delhi High Court's judgment. The Court held that Chitra Ramkrishna's contention that she was not a public servant could be raised before the trial court, allowing the prosecution to continue.

Why was the public servant question so important?

The Prevention of Corruption Act applies to public servants. Ramkrishna argued that as head of a private, profit-making company she did not qualify. The Delhi High Court held that the NSE, as a recognised stock exchange performing vital economic functions in the public interest, meant her office carried a public duty under Section 2(c)(viii) of the Act.

Can these rulings still be challenged?

The proceedings continue before the Special Judge (PC Act). The accused can contest the charges and, per the Delhi High Court, may again raise the public servant question at trial. Orders in criminal proceedings are subject to further legal remedies, and the trial itself will test the CBI's evidence.

How can I check if a broker or exchange intermediary is registered?

SEBI maintains public registers of registered intermediaries at sebi.gov.in, and the exchanges list registered trading members on their websites. Registration confirms regulatory oversight but is not a guarantee against misconduct; it simply means the entity is accountable to the regulator and to grievance-redress mechanisms.

Where can I read the official order?

The Delhi High Court judgment dated 9 July 2026 in W.P.(CRL) 3343/2023 is available on Indian Kanoon. The Supreme Court's order of 15 September 2026 declining to interfere with it was reported by the legal press and will appear in the Court's record.

This report is based on the official Delhi High Court judgment dated 9 July 2026 in W.P.(CRL) 3343/2023, which the Supreme Court declined to interfere with. It was surfaced via coverage in Bar and Bench.