India’s insider trading enforcement framework has evolved since the overhaul of the insider trading regulations in 2015. Over the past decade, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has refined definitions and concepts and prosecuted insider trading charges with increasing sophistication.

Yet, one question that remained to be clearly answered is, when does information reported in the media about corporate transactions that haven’t been formally announced go from being a mere “market rumour” to “generally available information”? This is crucial because if a piece of information is classified as generally available, then a person cannot be penalised for insider trading if they trade using it, regardless of how it was obtained. The idea is that if the information is already publicly available and priced in, then the advantage an insider has over public investors disappears.

Two recent orders passed by Sebi on December 12, 2025, in the Adani Green Energy-SB Energy matter offer the clearest answer to this question yet.

Both proceedings stemmed from Adani Green Energy Limited’s (AGEL) May 19, 2021, announcement of share purchase agreements executed with SoftBank Group Capital and Bharti Global to acquire their stake in SB Energy Holdings, a transaction that could potentially increase AGEL’s operational capacity by roughly 46%. Sebi investigated trades executed in the days preceding the announcement by entities connected to the Adani Group.

In the first matter, Vinod Bahety, the then head of mergers and acquisitions at the Adani Group, was alleged to have communicated........

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