The colocation case ran from 2015 complaints through SEBI orders and appeals to a 2024 remand order
Colocation means a broker or trader rents rack space and connects its servers inside the exchange's data centre, which cuts the time an order takes to reach the matching engine. The service is legal. The regulatory question is fairness: every member who pays should get the same access and the same information at the same time, which SEBI's colocation guidelines of May 2015 aim at.
The case began with complaints to SEBI in 2015. They alleged that the tick by tick data feed reached members one by one, so a member that connected first to a lightly loaded server got prices sooner, and that one broker used this, including through backup servers. SEBI passed its order on 30 Apr 2019. The appellate tribunal, SAT, set parts of the findings aside on 23 Jan 2023 and sent issues back, and on 13 Sep 2024 SEBI disposed of the remanded proceedings against NSE and others without any direction. Read the orders, not a news summary.
HFT in India follows the same lines. Firms that hold for very short periods rely on fast links, colocated servers, lean code and risk systems that cut an order at once. SEBI's circular of 9 Apr 2018 added a free tick by tick feed for all members, published latency statistics and a unique identifier for every algo.
For a retail trader the lesson is about the chain. A broker API has order rate limits, an order goes through the broker's path, and a retail algo is not built to close the speed gap to a colocated firm. Test any millisecond edge against that fact before building on it.
Before you trade. Derivatives trading carries a high risk of loss. SEBI's study "Profitability of Individual Traders in the Equity Derivatives Segment (FY25 to FY26)" (August 2026) found that 87.7% of individual traders in equity F&O made net losses in FY26, with aggregate net losses of Rs 91,685 crore. Read the SEBI study