The CBI raids multiple locations in several cities as part of the NSE scam

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) launched a coordinated search operation at over 10 locations in multiple cities on Saturday in connection with the National Stock Exchange co-location scam case, officials said.

The search operation will cover brokers at more than 12 premises in Mumbai, Gandhinagar, Delhi, Noida, Gurugram and Kolkata, among other cities, they added.

The central agency has filed a chargesheet against former NSE CEO and MD Chitra Ramkrishna and group operating officer Anand Subramanian in the case, the officials said.

Since Ramkrishna was NSE CEO from 2010 to 2015, the investigation has found that OPG Securities, one of the FIR’s accused, connected to the secondary POP server on 670 days in the Futures and Options segment.

The CBI has kept the probe open into allegations of preferential access granted to certain brokers by NSE officials and undue gains made out of it during the tenure of Ramkrishna and Subramanian. When Ramkrishna took over as CEO in 2013, she appointed Subramanian to serve as her advisor. Subramanian was later promoted to the position of GOO, earning a fat salary of Rs 4.21 crore annually, according to company officials.

Unidentified person Ramkrishna claimed was a formless mysterious “yogi” (mystic) living in the Himalayas guided Subramanian’s controversial appointment and subsequent elevation, a probe into her e-mail exchanges during a SEBI audit had shown.

Central investigators had booked Delhi-based OPG Securities Private Limited owner and promoter Sanjay Gupta in 2018 for allegedly making gains through early access to the stock market trading system, according to officials.

Unidentified officials from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) in Mumbai, and other unidentified individuals are also being investigated by the federal agency.

Owner and promoter of the private company allegedly conspired with unidentified NSE officials to exploit the NSE’s server architecture.