NSE co-location case: Delhi Court reserves order on Anand Subramanian's bail plea

New Delhi [India], March 11 : A CBI Court of Delhi on Friday reserved the order on bail plea of Anand Subramanian, former Group Operating Officer and adviser to former MD of National Stock Exchange (NSE).
He was the first person who was arrested by CBI in the NSE co-location case last month.
The Special CBI Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal on Friday, after concluding the arguments of both sides, said the order in the bail matter will be passed on March 24, 2022.
Advocate Arshdeep Singh Khurana who appeared for Arvind Subramanian argued that as far as the allegations contained in the FIR are concerned, the applicant has been "wrongly implicated in the case, since he is not connected in any manner with the allegations so levelled. No offence is made out even from a reading of the FIR."
In fact, the FIR pertains to the applicant's alleged role in the unfair access to co-location facilities to one Sanjay Gupta and his company OPG Security Pvt Ltd. It has been stated that Sanjay Gupta with help from unknown persons, managed the data centre staff of the NSE who passed on information regarding switching on time of NSE exchange servers, which gave him an unfair advantage, submitted Advocate Arshdeep Singh. Advocates Vishnu Mohan and Aakashi Lodha also appeared for Arvind Subramanian in the case.
CBI counsel while opposing the bail plea submitted that 832 GB of data was recovered. "We recovered it from the archive. We have written to Microsoft to give us the complete data. He was not cooperating with us. Even the deleted material and certain emails. Anand is very influential and there is every possibility that he might flee," said the CBI lawyer.
The CBI further submitted that this person was known to Chitra Ramkrishna prior to joining the NSE. There are several emails of this person influencing Ramkrishna. The emails that have been extracted suggest that sensitive information has been leaked.
Earlier, CBI submitted that they are seriously looking at all the aspects of the investigation and there is a special team of 30 officials consisting of a senior official to probe the case. "We are also probing the role of SEBI officials in the matter. We have also recently questioned Ravi Narain, former MD of NSE."
The court recently also sent former managing director and chief executive officer of NSE Chitra Ramkrishna in connection with the NSE co-location case on CBI remand till March 14, 2022.
CBI, while producing Ramkrishna after arrest, also apprised the court that she did not recognize Anand Subramanian in the first meeting.
The CBI in its remand application of Chitra Ramkrishna stated that she continues to provide evasive answers and misguide the investigation officer. The CBI counsel submitted that the custodial interrogation of the accused Chitra Ramakrishna is needed to unearth the criminal conspiracy and the role of other NSE officials and brokers in the company. She is also required to be confronted with co-accused Anand Subramanian, who is already in police custody of CBI, to understand the magnitude and scope of the criminal conspiracy.
According to the CBI investigation, group operating officer Anand Subramanian's appointment was influenced by NSE chairman and MD Chitra Ramakrishnan.
The CBI is probing the alleged improper dissemination of information from the computer servers of the market exchanges to the stockbrokers.
Earlier, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has penalized the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and its former CEOs Chitra Ramakrishna and Ravi Narayan and two other officials for lapses in recruitment at the senior level.
Ravi Narain was the MD and CEO of the National Stock Exchange from April 1994 till March 2013, while Chitra Ramkrishna was MD and CEO of the NSE from April 2013 to December 2016.
The market regulators observed that the NSE and its top executives violated securities contract norms relating to the appointment of Anand Subramaniam as group operating officer and adviser to the managing director.