The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday arrested former chief operating officer of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), Anand Subramanian in connection with the NSE co-location case.
Subramanian was arrested from his Chennai residence, he will be taken to the federal agency’s headquarters in Delhi and will be produced before a local court for custody. Subramanian also worked as an advisor to the MD of NSE Chitra Ramakrishna.
“Mr. Subramanian was arrested in Chennai on February 24 night. He was earlier questioned for three days,” said an official of CBI.
Subramanian was arrested after he failed to cooperate in the ongoing probe by the central agency to investigate the email exchanges between Ramakrishna and a ‘yogi’. Ramakrishna violated the securities contract rules in the appointment of Subramanian as group operating officer and advisor to MD. Her decisions were driven by the ‘yogi’ who manipulated her to make decisions, appointing Subramanian as chief operating officer was one such decision.
Chitra Ramakrishna former CEO of NSE and Ravi Narain, former Vice Chairman of the board are being questioned by the CBI since last week. An official of CBI cited that more arrests will be made in the case.
SEBI had levied a penalty on Mr. Subramanian for violating the contracts and other rules, which included his appointment as a chief strategic advisor and his designation as group operating officer.
SEBI accused Subramanian of knowing the third person ‘yogi’ with whom the internal papers of the NSE were being shared by Ms Ramakrishna. According to the SEBI, Ramakrishna took major decisions on the instructions of the ‘yogi’.
According to the reports, Mr. Subramanian was offered ₹1.68 crore for the post of Chief strategic advisor in the NSE, when his last drawn salary was ₹15 lakh in a government corporation. He got increments in quick successions and his compensation had increased to about ₹5 crore by 2016. He also made several abroad visits during the check period.
A public interest litigation(PIL) was filed in the Delhi High Court in August 2017 by a journalist Shantanu Guha Ray.Ray demanded CBI probe into allegations of fraud in algo-trading.
The CBI expanded its investigation in light of the recent unknown facts which emerged in accordance with the SEBI order.