NSE co-location scam: Special CBI court denies bail to Anand Subramanian

A special CBI court on Thursday denied bail to Anand Subramanian, holding that the accusations against the former group operating officer of the National Stock Exchange were "grave and serious".

Subramanian is one of the accused, along with former NSE chief executive Chitra Ramkrishna, in the alleged irregularities over the co-location facility extended at the exchange to stockbrokers. According to the CBI, Subramanian was the person who impersonated as a 'Himalayan Yogi' and said to have influenced the decision of Ramkrishna at the NSE.

"Investigations are going on and the CBI is in the process of removing the secret veil to show to the court the true face of this Himalayan Yogi, who is as elusive as the anecdotal Himalayan Yeti," judge Sanjeev Aggarwal said.


"Further, the prosecution at this stage of investigation is stated to be working on disjoint scattered dots, from which it has to conjure a final picture in the shape of a charge sheet. The investigations which are at the initial stage will crystallise into concrete form only after filing of the charge sheet," the order said. Denying involvement in the alleged scam, Subramanian has claimed that despite having fully cooperated with the probe, the CBI arrested him in a "mechanical manner". Ramkrishna, who is also in jail, had also denied any wrongdoing.

In its order denying bail to Subramanian, the court said: "There are strong chances that he may influence the relevant witnesses or tamper with evidence."

Subramanian, who was also a former adviser to Ramkrishna, was arrested by the CBI on February 24. The case stems from allegations of providing unfair and preferential access to its servers for certain entities under the co-location set-up in 2012-14. Interest in the case revived after the Securities and Exchange Board of India order on February 11 that contained details of email exchanges between Ramkrishna and the so-called yogi. Many of the emails contained confidential information and urged the repeated advancement of Subramanian at the NSE, despite his apparent lack of qualifications.

The court said during the interrogation, Subramanian did not disclose the identity of the unknown people and the background of various email communications. It was also found that relevant emails had been deleted by the accused with an intention to destroy the evidence, it said.

While opposing the bail plea, the CBI had told the court that investigations were underway into the role and responsibility of top officials in facilitating unfair access to the co-location setup, whereby profits running in crores had been made. "The nature and gravity of the offence is quite severe, having far reaching consequences," it said. The agency had claimed that Subramanian had deleted most of the emails from two accounts, rigyajursama@ outlook.com and aanand_s@hotmail.com, with an intention to destroy the evidence.