CBI arrests NSE ex-group operating officer Anand Subramanian over irregularities

New Delhi, February 25

The CBI has arrested former group operating officer of National Stock Exchange Anand Subramanian after expanding its three-year probe into the co-location scam in the exchange in view of “fresh facts” that emerged in a damning Sebi report referring to a mysterious yogi which was guiding actions of former CEO Chitra Ramkrishna and other irregularities, officials said on Friday.

Subramanian was taken into custody on Thursday night in Chennai, they said.

He was questioned for days in Chennai earlier this week during which he was found evasive in his responses to the sleuths which prompted the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to examine him in custody, the officials said.

The agency would produce him before a court in Chennai for his transit remand to bring him to Delhi, they said.

Once the plea is granted, the CBI would bring him to the national capital and produce him before a special court for seeking his custodial remand for questioning in connection with the case at its headquarters, they added.

An audit report allegedly referred to Subramanian as a mysterious yogi, but it was dismissed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in its report on February 11, the officials said.

Ramkrishna, who succeeded former CEO Ravi Narain in 2013, had appointed Subramanian as her advisor who was later elevated as group operating officer (GOO) at a fat pay cheque of Rs 4.21 crore.

Subramanian’s controversial appointment and later elevation besides crucial decisions were guided by an unidentified person who Ramkrishna claimed was a formless mysterious yogi dwelling in the Himalayas, a probe into Ramkrishna’s email exchanges during the Sebi-ordered audit showed.

It was alleged in an audit that Subramanian was the yogi, but Sebi dismissed that claim in its final report on February 11.

Ramakrishna had left the NSE in December 2016.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India on February 11 had charged former National Stock Exchange (NSE) CEO Ramkrishna and others with alleged governance lapses in the appointment of Subramanian as the chief strategic advisor and his re-designation as group operating officer and advisor to MD.