Nilesh Shah bats for minimum qualifying criteria for F&O trading after Maharashtra man kills family, self over Rs 1.8 cr loss

After a school principal in Maharashtra’s Solapur allegedly killed his wife and two sons before dying by suicide amid stock market losses of Rs 1.8 crore, market expert Nilesh Shah called for a mandatory minimum qualification criterion for trading in the derivatives market.

According to a Times of India report, the zilla parishad school principal allegedly poisoned his wife and two children by lacing their ice cream before taking his own life by hanging at his native village in Solapur district on Thursday night. Based on a note recovered from the scene, police suspect financial losses of around Rs 1.8 crore in the stock market may have driven 41-year-old Yogesh Patil to take the extreme step.

Preliminary inquiries revealed that Patil had even borrowed money from relatives to invest in markets, promising high returns, as per the TOI report. Police are reportedly registering a murder case against Patil for killing his wife and children aged 11 and 9 years.

‘Get rich quickly’ results in such tragedies: Nilesh Shah

Nilesh Shah, Managing Director of Kotak AMC, took to X to react to the news. “This is such a sad story. ‘Get rich quickly’ results into such tragedies,” he wrote, adding that only a few get reported while the rest goes below the radar.

The market analyst quoted SEBI’s research as saying that retail Indian speculators’ losses in derivatives trading exceeded Rs 2.80 lakh crore between FY22-25. “Maybe time has come to make it mandatory to pass minimum qualification criteria for trading in derivatives market,” he further wrote.

F&O losses on the rise

According to a study by market regulator SEBI, retail individual traders in the equity derivatives segment made net losses of Rs 1.05 lakh crore in fiscal 2025, marking a 41% increase from Rs 74,812 crore in fiscal 2024. It said that around 91% of retail traders continue to lose money in derivatives trading.
Also read: Retail traders’ F&O losses up 41% in FY25The government and regulator have been trying to curb speculative trading, with the Union Budget 2026 more than doubling the STT on futures and raising levies on options by up to 50%. Speaking about derivative trading, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said, “We are touching only the futures and options segment. No one has increased transaction costs elsewhere. Speculation, what we call ‘satta’ in Hindi, is highly risky, and many people with limited funds face heavy losses. The nominal increase in STT is aimed purely at deterring excessive speculation. We respect market activity, but the government cannot ignore the losses faced by small investors.”

Announcing the changes in Parliament on February 1 this year, the finance minister said: “I propose to raise the STT on futures to 0.05 percent from the present 0.02 percent. STT on options premium and exercise of options are both proposed to be raised to 0.15 percent from the present rate of 0.1 percent and 0.125 percent, respectively.”

Also read: F&O satta is highly risky… how can the government stay quiet, says Nirmala Sitharaman on STT hike
The government said the increase was intended “to provide reasonable course correction in the F&O segment in the capital market and generate additional revenues for the government”.

NSE CEO on minimum qualifying criteria for derivatives trading

NSE’s managing director and CEO, Ashishkumar Chauhan, earlier this year also batted for a ‘minimum qualifying criteria’ for those participating in derivatives trading to prevent people from lower strata of society from wasting their money on speculation.

Also read: Why is market rising today?

“At the same time, a developing country like India cannot allow over speculation by lower strata of the economy. Hence, more and more regulations will come from governments, regulators and exchanges to curb over speculation till the time perception of lower strata of the society doing over speculation continues,” he said at an event.

(With inputs from agencies)
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)