NSE co-location case: Delhi HC grants bail to Chitra Ramkrishna, Anand Subramanian
An FIR was registered in the case in May 2018, amid fresh revelations about irregularities at the country's largest stock exchange.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted bail to former National Stock Exchange (NSE) head Chitra Ramkrishna and ex group operating officer Anand Subramanian in the co-location scam case being probed by the CBI.
Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain said he was granting "statutory bail" to the two former officials of the NSE.
Co-location scam: What is Chitra Ramkrishna's case?
In 2018, an FIR was registered following revelations about irregularities at National Stock Exchange (NSE). The case involves allegations the NSE provided some high-frequency traders unfair access to speed up algorithmic trading.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) questioned former NSE CEO Chitra Ramkrishna and her then adviser Anand Subramanian as part of an investigation into suspected corporate governance lapses at the country's biggest bourse.
The CBI had arrested Ramkrishna on 6 March after her anticipatory bail application was dismissed by a trial court. The CBI is probing the alleged improper dissemination of information from the computer servers of the market exchanges to stock brokers.
Market regulator SEBI also highlighted corporate governance lapses at the NSE . It said Ramkrishna over the years shared confidential NSE data and sought advice from an outsider she described as a Himalayan yogi.
The SEBI order said the former Ramkrishna "arbitrarily" appointed Subramanian as her adviser, adding he had "no relevant experience".
CBI in its report mentioned that the investigation has established that co-accused Ramkrishna abused her official position at NSE. Ramkrishna also arbitrarily and disproportionately hiked Subramanian's compensation and re-designated him as group operating officer without requisite approvals.
Ramkrishna was the MD and CEO of the NSE from April 2013 to December 2016.
Last week, the CBI took former Mumbai Police commissioner Sanjay Pandey on four-day custody in connection with the phone tapping of NSE employees by his IT firm.
The CBI has alleged that during 2009-17, Narain, Ramkrishna, currently in judicial custody in the NSE co-location scam, Varanasi and Haldipur conspired to illegally intercept the telephones of NSE employees for which they hired iSec Services Pvt Ltd, founded by Pandey in 2001.
The company received a payment of ₹4.45 crore for the illegal tapping which was camouflaged as "Periodic Study of Cyber Vulnerabilities" at NSE.
The FIR alleged that the telcom company also provided transcripts of the tapped conversations to senior management of the stock market.
They said four MTNL lines used by NSE employees were under scanner having a capacity of 120 calls at a time.
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