New Delhi: National Stock Exchange’s (NSE) former group operating officer (GOO) Anand Subramanian was denied bail in the co-location scam case on Thursday by a Delhi court.
Subramanian is currently lodged in judicial custody.
After hearing counsels for the CBI and Subramanian, Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal passed the order, according to a report by the PTI.
Subramanian was arrested by the CBI on February 24 and was remanded to custodial interrogation. The court sent him to 14-day judicial custody on March 9.
According to the CBI counsel, Subramanian, who impersonated as the Himalayan Yogi to influence NSE’s former MD and CEO Chitra Ramkrishna and remained evasive during interrogation, was a flight risk and should not be granted bail.
However, Subramanian’s lawyer had sought his release on bail on the ground that he was not named in the FIR. The lawyer said that Subramanian had no role in the NSE co-location case, while specifically denying the allegation that he was the ‘Himalayan Yogi’ who allegedly influenced decision making for Chitra Ramkrishna.
Ramkrishna was also arrested by the CBI.
The agency has alleged that she colluded with Subramanian and had abused her official position as the MD of NSE. She got him appointed as her chief strategic advisor and consultant to accommodate and appoint him bypassing the prescribed due procedures at NSE.
Earlier, Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal ordered that Ramakrishna be physically produced before the court next on March 28.
Ramkrishna was produced in the court by the CBI following expiry of her 7-day custody where the investigation agency urged the court to remand her to judicial custody.
The court had also pulled up the CBI on March 9 for the tardy probe, saying that the magnitude of the case will be big and the reputation of the country was at stake.
In the co-location facility offered by the NSE, brokers could place their servers within the stock exchange premises giving them faster access to the markets.
It is alleged by the CBI that some brokers in connivance with insiders abused the algorithm and the co-location facility to make windfall profits.
An FIR in the NSE co-location scam was registered in 2018 for the alleged commission of offences under sections 204 (destruction of document or electronic evidence) and 120B (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code as well as the violation of the provisions of the Information Technology Act and Prevention of Corruption Act.