Even as the Central Bureau of Investigations has issued a lookout notice against Ravi Narain, the former boss of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) is already in London with his family for the past several months.
Sources close to Narain told BusinessLine that Narain had assured the CBI he would be present in Delhi for questioning. The CBI has summoned him along with Chitra Ramkrishna to question matters relating to the co-location trading scam at NSE. While the CBI questioned Chitra on Friday in Mumbai, Narain is yet to present himself for interrogation.
CBI has issued a lookout notice against Chitra Ramkrishna, Narain, who headed the NSE for the longest period since the inception of the exchange and Anand Subramanian, the former chief operating officer of the exchange. A lookout notice is issued against the alleged accused to prevent them from leaving the country.
CBI stepped up on its investigations into the co-location scam after it came to light that an unknown person claiming to be Ramakrishna's spiritual Guru was guiding her in running the day to day affairs of the exchange.
Sources say that Narain had started living in London on the advice of his doctors, who told him that 'India's climate may not be good for his health.' Narain has started his own venture in London, and his children are also understood to be studying in the UK. Narain did not respond to phone calls from BusinessLine.
Narain had earlier told SEBI that Ramkrishna had been managing the day-to-day operations at the exchange since 2009. He continued at the helm of NSE only because the board insisted that he continue till 2013. One of the key allegations in the co-location scam is that data was stolen from the exchange, which the forensic audit indicated went to two researchers using it to develop algo trading software. NSE, Ramkrishna, Narain and Subramanian were all subject to forensic audits after co-location scam came to light. The fraud came to light due to a whistleblower’s complaint to SEBI in 2015, in which the entire modus operandi of the people gaming the system was laid out.