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Informist, Wednesday, Jul. 1, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The Delhi High Court Wednesday held that the National Stock Exchange of India is a "public authority" under the Right to Information Act, 2005. This means National Stock Exchange is legally obligated to disclose information sought by an applicant and appoint public information officers under the 2005 Act.

 

The division bench of Justice C. Hari Shankar and Justice Om Prakash Shukla upheld the single judge bench's 2010 ruling that NSE qualified as a public authority under the categories of bodies owned, controlled or substantially financed, directly or indirectly by funds provided by the appropriate government. The division bench said that the Supreme Court earlier had already concluded the stock exchanges belonged to the category of "State" under Article 12 of the Indian Constitution.

 

The high court noted that NSE was recognised as a stock exchange under an order issued by the Securities and Exchange Board of India. This resulted in NSE being constituted and established as an "authority" or "institution of self-government", the court noted. "The order issued by the SEBI under Section 4(3) of the SCRA (Securities (Contracts) Regulations Act, 1956), which was essential for NSE to function, had to be regarded as an order issued by the Central Government in view of Section 29 of the SCRA," said the court.

 

Section 4(3) of the 1956 Act requires recognition of the stock exchange by the government for it to function as a stock exchange, the court said. "In view of the fact that Section 4(3) requires governmental recognition for a stock exchange to function as such, we agree with the learned single judge that the stock exchange has to be regarded as having been 'established' or, at the very least, 'constituted' by an order issued by the government," said the court. 

 

NSE had argued that it was not owned, controlled or substantially financed, directly or indirectly, by the appropriate government. It was recognised and regulated by the SEBI, as a delegated authority of the central government under the provisions of the 1956 Act and The Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992, said NSE. If regulatory control of stock exchanges was to be treated as sufficient for converting a privately incorporated stock exchange into a "public authority" under the 2005 Act, all similarly placed private entities such as commercial banks, mutual funds, insurance companies, depositories, non banking financial corporations would all become "public authorities" as they were subject to regulatory control by sectoral regulators, said NSE.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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