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13. One of the counterparties to the option contract, namely CITI Bank has requested that they may be heard. Though no impleadment application was filed, we, permitted the learned senior counsel Shri Dwarkadas to make his submissions.

14. Various submissions were made by the learned senior counsel for ISSL, SEBI and others and we proceed to decide this matter.

15. An objection was raised by the learned Senior Counsel for SEBI namely, that the present appeal filed by ISSL is not maintainable inasmuch as no appeal lies under Section 23L of the Securities Contract (Regulation) Act, 1956 (hereinafter referred to as SCRA Act) against an order passed by the NCL. In this regard, we have heard the learned counsels for the parties at some length.

16. The appeal has been filed under Section 23L of the SCRA Act. For facility, the said provision is extracted hereunder:-

"23L. Appeal to Securities Appellate Tribunal.--

(1) Any person aggrieved, by the order or decision of the recognized stock exchange or the adjudicating officer or any order made by the Securities and Exchange Board of India under section 4B, may prefer an appeal before the Securities Appellate Tribunal and the provisions of sections 22B, 22C, 22D and 22E of this Act, shall apply, as far as may be, to such appeals.

20. From the aforesaid it is clear that, any decision made by a stock exchange which is recognized under Section 4 by the Central Government is appealable under Section 23L of the Act.

21. Section 8-A was inserted in the Act by Act 1 of 2005 with effect from 12/10/2004. The said provision is extracted hereunder:-

"8A. Clearing corporation.--

(1) A recognized stock exchange may, with the prior approval of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, transfer the duties and functions of a clearing house to a clearing corporation, being a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956 (1 of 1956), for the purpose of--

22. Pursuant thereto, the NSE Clearing Limited (NCL) came into existence as a clearing corporation under Section 8-A of the SCRA Act by a notification dated 26th September, 2017. The SEBI renewed the recognition for a period of three years under Section 4 read with Section 8-A of the SCRA Act. As a result of this notification, NCL is a recognized clearing corporation under the SCRA Act.

23. The limited question is, whether the respondent-NSE Clearing Ltd. being a recognized clearing corporation is akin to a recognized stock exchange or not? We find that an order of the recognized stock exchange is appealable under Section 23L of the Act. Some of the duties and functions of a recognized stock exchange has been transferred to a clearing corporation namely, NSE Clearing Ltd. This clearing corporation has been recognized under Section 4 read with Section 8-A(4) which provision is to recognize a stock exchange. Thus if an order of a recognized stock exchange is appealable under Section 23L, the functions and duties of a recognized stock exchange which have been transferred to a clearing corporation would also be appealable under Section 23L. A clearing corporation cannot stand on a better footing or cannot stand outside the provisions of the SCRA Act especially when a superior body, namely, the recognized stock exchange's orders are appealable under Section 23L.