Co-location scam: Delhi High Court seeks CBI response on bail plea of former NSE official Anand Subramanian

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the bail plea of former Group Operating Officer and Chief Strategic Advisor of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), Anand Subramanian. .Notice was issued by Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain, who listed the matter for further hearing on July 7. .Subramanian was also an advisor to NSE Managing Director Chitra Ramkrishna, who was recently denied bail in the NSE co-location scam case.A special CBI court had rejected his regular bail application as well as his default bail plea earlier this month. The plea before the High Court has been filed through Advocate Alok Tripathi and was argued by Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa. .The case against Subramanian stems from a February 11 order of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) that found that Ramakrishna was allegedly involved in financial misdeeds relating to fixation and frequent revision of Subramanian’s compensation in a disproportionate manner, in cahoots with a man she claimed to be a “Siddha Purusha”.CBI has said that it is Subramanian who has been referred to as “Siddha Purusha”.It has also been alleged that Subramanian, while performing a public duty to protect the interests of common investors, indulged in criminal conspiracy with other co-accused and caused huge advantage to various trading members/brokers and thus committed a serious economic offence..However, Subramaniam’s counsel had argued before the lower court that no criminality could be attributed to him, as he played no role in the daily affairs of NSE and was only an employee and not the decision maker. It was argued that SEBI had given him a clean chit since he was not involved in co-location matters directly or indirectly, and was only taking care of regular operations of the Exchange on the regulatory side of things.