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A special CBI court on Friday reserved its order on the bail application of former Group Operating Officer of National Stock Exchange (NSE) Anand Subramanian in the co-location case. During the hearing, the CBI told the court that Subramanian was impersonating a “Himalayan Yogi” and influencing the decisions of the former MD Chitra Ramkrishna.
Subramanian was advisor to Ramkrishna who also has been arrested and currently in police remand. The court had earlier sent Subramanian to a 14-day judicial custody after 12 days’ police custody.
Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal was hearing the bail application filed by Subramanian in a 2018 case of bourse manipulation and will pronounce his order on March 24
On the CBI’s argument for further remand because Subramanian is a “flight risk”, the judge remarked that he had not actually fled the country in the past four years. The CBI also told the court that Subramanian “thought he can be a Yogi for four years, no one would identify. He was operating the email IDs”.
Subramanian’s lawyer, Arshdeep told the court that the scam took place between 2010 and 2014 and that the accused joined in 2013. His lawyers also told the court that two SEBI internal enquiries had not found anything against their client in this case.
The judge said, “You are the Himalayan Yogi. Living in the high reaches of the Himalayas with divine powers. CBI was in hibernation for four years. They suddenly woke up now. I don’t know why.” Arshdeep replied, “I (reference to Subramanian) am not the Yogi.” The CBI opposed Subramanian’s bail by stating that they had recovered 832 GB worth of data and that some of the data had been deleted.
The CBI prosecutor, VK Pathak, told the court that Subramanian was “involved in the scam”, was known to former MD Chitra Ramakrishna, and influenced her decision making. The prosecutor made these allegations claiming that the agency has emails to demonstrate this.
“There are various malpractices by Chitra. They visited tax havens like Seychelles and Mauritius. This aspect has to be investigated. They were gaining pecuniary advantage. He was in a high position and was taking decisions. In the email exchanges between Chitra and Subramanian, it was found that sensitive information was exchanged. He was the main advisor to the MD. He has not revealed the identity of the accused persons. He is evasive in his replies,” the CBI prosecutor told the court.
NSE co-location scam
On March 8, the court had pulled up the CBI for its slow pace of investigation in the 2018 case saying that the reputation of the country was at stake and that people will stop investing in India and move to China.
The 2018 case pertains to charges of preferential access to the trading system to some brokers through the co-location facility (where brokers can buy “rack space” for their servers) at the NSE, early login and “dark fibre”, which can allow a trader split-second faster access to the data feed of the exchange. Even a split-second edge is considered capable of bringing huge gains to a trader.
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