The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has questioned former NSE Group Operating Officer, Anand Subramanian, in connection with the co-location trading scam at the exchange.
His questioning, which went on for three days in Chennai, comes after the agency grilled Chitra Ramkrishna, former MD & CEO of the exchange, last Friday and Ravi Narain, the former CEO of NSE, the day after.
Sources said as Subramanian’s questioning progressed in Chennai, another team of sleuths reached the SEBI office in Mumbai and collected evidences and documents related to the alleged scam.
The backstory
SEBI, in its order on the exchange, had said that Ramkrishna was steered by a ‘yogi’, dwelling in the Himalayan ranges, in the appointment of Subramanian as the exchange’s group operating officer and advisor to the MD.
CBI had also issued lookout circulars against Ramkrishna, Narain and Subramanian to prevent them from leaving the country. The agency stepped up its investigations into the co-location scam after it came to light that an unknown person claiming to be Ramkrishna’s spiritual guru was guiding her in running the day-to-day affairs of the exchange.
Ramkrishna was ousted from the NSE in 2016 for her role in the co-location and algo trading scam and abuse of power. The probe found that Ramkrishna ran NSE with impunity. No one from the senior management, board, or the promoters — which include big government institutions and banks — ever objected to her ways. Instead, she was given ₹44 crore as pending dues and salary when she left NSE.