Delhi HC Dismisses NSE Divestment PIL With ₹5 Lakh Costs for Suppressing Parallel Bombay HC Petition
A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court rejected a PIL on IFCI's NSE share divestment after finding the petitioner had hidden a prior Bombay High Court writ and made a false sworn averment.
A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, comprising Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia, dismissed a public interest litigation filed by Parinay Sharma challenging the divestment by IFCI Limited of its shareholding in the National Stock Exchange of India Limited. The Bench did not examine the allegations on their merits. It dismissed the petition at the threshold on 19 August 2026, imposing exemplary costs of ₹5,00,000 upon the petitioner after finding that he had suppressed the pendency of a substantially similar writ petition before the Bombay High Court and had made a categorically false sworn averment to the contrary in the Delhi PIL.
The Petition and What It Sought
The PIL, filed under Article 226 of the Constitution, arose from IFCI's sale of 11,25,000 equity shares of NSE during the financial year 2015–16. IFCI had held 24,97,750 equity shares of NSE as on 31 March 2015, constituting 5.55% of NSE's paid-up equity share capital. Those shares were divested in four tranches between 15 September 2015 and 1 July 2016 in favour of DVI Fund (Mauritius) Ltd., Soach Global Opportunities Fund, and two undisclosed transferees, for a total consideration of ₹440.93 crores.
The petitioner's senior counsel argued that the divestment price implied a valuation of approximately ₹17,550 crores for NSE, even though a comparable transaction in June 2013 had placed NSE's value at ₹17,995 crores — and that this was despite NSE's standalone revenue rising from ₹1,489 crores to ₹2,242 crores between FY 2012–13 and FY 2015–16, with operating margins of 65% to 70%. When measured against NSE's present unlisted-market valuation of approximately ₹5,00,000 crores, the petitioner contended that the divestment caused a notional loss of roughly ₹12,121.13 crores to IFCI and, consequently, to the public exchequer.
The reliefs sought were extensive: preservation of the complete transaction record; disclosure by DVI Fund, Soach Global, and similarly placed entities of their ownership chain, ultimate beneficial ownership, and source of funds; a restraint on their participation in NSE's proposed Offer for Sale pending disclosure; deposit of any transfer proceeds in an interest-bearing escrow account in India; SEBI examination of the transfers and the fit-and-proper status of transferees; and consideration of the petitioner's complaint dated 5 June 2026 by SEBI and the CBI, including, if warranted, an independent investigation.
The petitioner had submitted complaints on 5 June 2026 to the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs and to the Director, CBI. In the interregnum, NSE filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus with SEBI on 17 June 2026, structured as an Offer for Sale by existing shareholders. IFCI, responding on 1 July 2026, stated the divestment had been conducted with SEBI's approval, following due process, applicable regulatory guidelines, and a competitive bidding process run through IDFC Securities Limited.
The Preliminary Objection: A Hidden Writ and a False Averment
NSE's senior counsel opposed the PIL at the threshold, producing a copy of W.P. No. 2408/2026 — a writ petition filed by the same petitioner before the High Court of Judicature at Bombay (the “Bombay Writ”) — which the Bench directed to be taken on record.
The Bombay Writ had been instituted on 2 May 2026 and was listed for pre-admission hearing on 20 July 2026. The Delhi PIL was filed on 5 August 2026 — more than three months after the Bombay petition and two weeks after its first hearing. The Bombay Writ concerned the acquisition of NSE equity shares by Mauritius-based funds, including DVI Fund, at a nominal value while NSE remained unlisted, and sought a direction to NSE to disclose its promoter group and ultimate beneficiaries.
NSE's counsel pointed out that despite this prior proceeding, the petitioner had made no disclosure of it in the Delhi PIL. More seriously, Paragraph 41 of the Delhi PIL, under the heading “No Alternative Remedy / No Prior Petition”, stated in categorical terms that no earlier petition seeking the same or substantially similar reliefs had been filed before this Court, the Supreme Court, or any other Court or Tribunal. That averment was made on oath.
Rule 9(i)(h) of the Delhi High Court (Public Interest Litigation) Rules, 2010 requires that where a petitioner has previously filed any PIL or preferred any letter petition, the details must be disclosed in tabular form, specifying the writ petition number, its status, and its outcome. The Bench found that not only had no such disclosure been made, but the petitioner had positively sworn to the opposite.
How the Bench Reasoned
Justice Tejas Karia, writing for the Bench, held that the omission was not a technical lapse. The Bombay Writ had been filed by the petitioner himself. He could not have been unaware of its pendency when he swore the Delhi affidavit.
A comparison of the two proceedings showed direct and substantial overlap. In the Bombay Writ, the petitioner sought a direction to NSE to disclose, on affidavit, its promoter group, shareholders, and ultimate beneficiaries along with know-your-customer documents. In the Delhi PIL, the petitioner sought a direction to SEBI and NSE to require DVI Fund, Soach Global, and similarly placed entities to disclose their complete ownership and control chain up to their ultimate beneficial owners. Both proceedings pertained to the same shareholding in the same company. The Bench found that the petitioner appeared to have resorted to “clever drafting” to make the prayers appear distinct.
The Bench accepted NSE's submission that the petitioner had engaged in forum shopping after having failed to obtain relief in the Bombay Writ.
On the law, the Bench drew on three Supreme Court decisions. In State of Uttaranchal v. Balwant Singh Chaufal, (2010) 3 SCC 402, the Supreme Court had observed that PIL jurisdiction is susceptible to abuse by petitions with oblique motives, and that frivolous PILs must be discouraged while the jurisdiction itself is preserved. In State of M.P. v. Narmada Bachao Andolan, (2011) 7 SCC 639, the Supreme Court held that a petitioner invoking PIL jurisdiction must make a full and true disclosure of all material facts, and that a person seeking equitable relief must approach the Court “not merely with clean hands, but also with a clean mind, clean heart and clean objective.” It also observed that a false statement made to secure a favourable order may amount to criminal contempt. In State of Jharkhand v. Shiv Shankar Sharma, (2022) 19 SCC 626, the Supreme Court reiterated that non-disclosure of prior similar proceedings in a PIL may justify refusal of relief at the threshold.
The Bench emphasised that PIL jurisdiction is equitable in nature, and that this imposes a correspondingly higher obligation of candour on a petitioner who invokes it. Rule 9(i)(h) of the PIL Rules exists precisely to enable the Court to ascertain, at the threshold, who is before it, what causes the petitioner has previously pursued, and whether the same or an overlapping cause is already pending elsewhere. It operates as a safeguard against parallel proceedings and the risk of conflicting adjudication.
The principle that suppression of a material fact disentitles a litigant to relief irrespective of the merits of the underlying cause, the Bench held, applies with greater rigour in PIL proceedings. Here, what was withheld was not some external fact but a parallel proceeding instituted by the petitioner himself.
The Bench also noted that the petition was founded on a news report from 2015 — a fact the PIL itself acknowledged, referencing a Hindustan Times report of 16 September 2015 — and that the petitioner had offered no satisfactory explanation for approaching the Court nearly a decade later.
Outcome
The Division Bench dismissed W.P.(C) 11957/2026 without examining the merits of the allegations concerning IFCI's divestment of its NSE shareholding. It found that the petitioner had approached the Court with unclean hands, had suppressed the pendency of the Bombay Writ, and had indulged in forum shopping.
To deter such conduct and to preserve the sanctity of PIL proceedings, the Bench imposed exemplary costs of ₹5,00,000 upon the petitioner. The amount is to be paid to the Delhi High Court Bar Clerks' Association (A/C No. 15530100006282, IFSC Code: UCBA0001553) within two weeks of the date of the order. When petitioner's senior counsel sought a reduction in the quantum of costs at the time of pronouncement, the Bench declined.