The CBI has arrested Anand Subramanian, former chief operating officer of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), after expanding its probe into a co-location scam in the exchange following “fresh facts” in a Sebi report that referred to a mysterious yogi guiding the actions of former MD and CEO Chitra Ramkrishna.
“He was arrested late on Thursday night from Chennai following sustained questioning for three days,” a CBI official said.
Subramanian was brought to Delhi and produced before a special court here which sent him to CBI custody till March 6. He was found to be evasive in his responses to the sleuths which prompted the CBI to examine him in custody, CBI officials said.
Subramanian was first appointed as chief strategic adviser in the NSE in 2013 and was later promoted as group operating officer in 2015 by the then managing director and chief executive officer Ramkrishna. In 2016, Subramanian quit the NSE after the allegations of irregularities surfaced in the co-location case.
“The agency is also probing Chitra Ramkrishna’s role. More arrests are likely in the case,” the official said. Sources said the emails exchanged between Ramkrishna with the yogi has gained wide attention amidst the ongoing probe.
“Last week we questioned Ramkrishna in the manipulation case that pertains to the unfair dissemination of information from servers of the exchange to those of the stock brokers,” said another agency official.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India has already slapped a fine of Rs 3 crore on Ramkrishna for exchanging confidential information over email with the unknown yogi.
The Sebi had received several complaints between December 15, 2015, to November 2016 alleging irregularities in the appointment of Subramanian as the group operating officer and adviser to Chitra.
On February 11, Sebi charged Ramkrishna and others with alleged governance lapses in the appointment of Subramanian as the chief strategic adviser and his re-designation as group operating officer and adviser to MD.
With inputs from PTI
