‘A divine sign’: NSE CEO Ashish Chauhan links Tirupati to SEBI’s signal visit for IPO approval

The Indian National Stock Exchange’s (NSE) long-awaited initial public offering (IPO) could be on the verge of a crucial breakthrough, with market regulator SEBI indicating that regulatory clearance could come as soon as this month.

Ashish Kumar Chauhan, Managing Director and CEO of the NSE, shared a personal note on X (formerly Twitter) on January 11, linking his family’s pilgrimage to Tirupati to recent positive signals from the regulator. Chauhan said he has received Lord Venkateshwara’s blessings for the stock exchange, its employees, members, listed companies, stakeholders and investors.

“The pilgrimage was planned some time ago. The SEBI Chairman’s signal to give approval for NSE’s IPO this month, just as we reached Tirupati last night, truly felt like a divine sign from the Almighty. A blessed pilgrimage!” Chauhan wrote.

His remarks come as the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) confirmed that it is at a “very advanced stage” of issuing a no-objection certificate (NoC) for the NSE IPO. SEBI Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said the approval process was almost complete, but did not give a final date.

“It could be done by this month,” Pandey said, according to YEARSsignaling that long-awaited regulatory approval may finally be in sight.

The NSE has been seeking approval for its IPO for almost a decade. The exchange first filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) in December 2016, but the plan was derailed by governance lapses and the co-location controversy, which alleged that some brokers received preferential access to the exchange’s algorithmic trading systems.

After years of regulatory review, the NSE reapplied for a NoC in August 2024, after resolving several outstanding issues. A major breakthrough came in October 2024, when the exchange settled the trading access point (TAP) architecture and network connectivity case by paying a penalty of ₹643 crore.

Pandey noted that since then, the NSE has taken multiple corrective measures, including changes in senior management, restructuring of the board of directors, strengthening of compliance frameworks and addressing past regulatory issues.

The IPO proposal has faced repeated delays since 2016, with the exchange seeking the NoC multiple times – once in 2019, twice in 2020 and again in 2024 – as unresolved issues related to co-location and dark fiber access continued to delay the process. With most of these concerns now resolved, regulatory approval appears closer than ever.