A Delhi court on March 24 dismissed the bail application of former National Stock Exchange (NSE) Group Operating Officer (GOO) Anand Subramanian in the co-location fraud case.
Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal issued the order after hearing lawyers from the CBI and Mr Subramanian, who is currently in custody.
The former GOO was arrested by the CBI on February 24 and remanded in custody. He was transferred to a 14-day judicial detention facility on March 9.
The CBI attorney said that Mr Subramanian, who posed as a “Himalayan yogi” to influence former MD and CEO of NSE Chitra Ramkrishna and remained evasive during interrogation, posed a risk of absconding and would not grant him bail should be.
Mr Subramanian’s attorney had requested his release on bail on the grounds that he was not named in the FIR, he played no role in the NSE collocation facility while specifically denying claims that he was the “Himalayan Yogi”, who allegedly influenced Mrs Ramkrishna’s decision-making.
On March 9, the court called in the CBI over the delay in investigating the case, saying the scale of the case “will be large” and that the country’s reputation is at stake.
FIR in the NSE co-location scam was registered in 2018 for allegedly committing offenses under Sections 204 (Destruction of Documents or Electronic Evidence) and 120B (Conspiracy) of the Indian Criminal Code, as well as violating the provisions of the Information Technology Act and Corruption Prevention Act.
In the co-location facility offered by the NSE, brokers could place their servers on the exchange’s premises, giving them faster access to the markets.
The investigative body alleges that some brokers, with the connivance of insiders, abused the algorithm and co-location facility to generate unexpected profits.
The CBI also arrested Ms. Ramkrishna in the case.
The CBI had alleged that Ms. Ramkrishna, along with Mr. Subramanian, had abused their official position as MD of NSE and appointed him their Chief Strategic Advisor/Consultant, creating that Chief Strategic Advisor post to include him, circumventing the requirement and to appoint due process at NSE.
