10 Important White-Collar Judgments Of 2025

The year 2025 saw some of the most talked about rulings in white collar crime, where the Supreme Court shaped how our criminal justice system looks at economic offences, money laundering, bail rules and the rights of accused persons caught up in complex investigations. These top 10 judgments show how Courts are trying to strike a balance between strong enforcement on one side and fair trial rights on the other. From expanding access to documents in PMLA cases to checking illegal arrests, the...

PMLA & Real Estate: Why Developers And Agents Must Rethink Compliance

The real estate industry in India has long been known for the exploitation and malpractices of the builders. With the introduction of Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, there has been a fair attempt to bring the real estate sector under scrutiny by imposing mandatory compliances and heavy penalties on the developers. One of the major developments in the real estate industry has been the inclusion of real estate developers, brokers and agents within the legal ambit of...

The Panoramic View Of The NSE Co-Location Case

The 'NSE co-location' case is a security market scam that surfaced owing to the courage of a whistle-blower in 2015, in which some brokers and National Stock Exchange (“NSE”) officials were involved in sabotaging the system for securing gains during the market trade. The first question which arises in this instance is – What do we mean by 'co-location' in this regard? Co-location is a service given by the NSE allowing trading members to have their own servers within the exchange's data centre,...

Premium Vs Rent: A Principled Approach To RERA's Jurisdiction Over Lease Transactions

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (“the Act”), was enacted with the core objective of safeguarding the interests of homebuyers.[1] While the Act has brought significant transformation to India's real estate landscape, its applicability to lease transactions remains a contentious issue in many states. The ambiguity surrounding the applicability of the Act to lease transactions arises from seemingly contradictory provisions of the Act. Section 2(d) includes within...

Beneath Tip Of The Iceberg: Defenses For Insider Trading

Defenses against the charge of Insider Trading, much like an iceberg, reveal only a fraction of its true form above the surface. What is seen and codified is but a sliver of what actually exists. On paper, SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations 2015 (“2015 Regulations”) appear to offer a neatly defined framework, with Regulation 4(1) categorically stating that trading when in possession of UPSI would attract the charge of Insider Trading and the Explanation thereof latches a...