NSE co-location scam: Delhi High Court directs CBI officer to appear before court

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday ordered that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officer who is investigating the National Stock Exchange (NSE) co-location scam, should be personally present before the court on the next date of hearing (Shantanu Guha Ray v UOI and Anr)..The direction came from the Bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup Jairam Bhambhani while hearing a petition filed by journalist Shantanu Guha Ray who alleged that despite the whistle-blower providing details of the scam nearly three-and-half years back, nothing “substantial” has happened in the case..The Bench said that it has some questions for the Investigating Officer (IO) probing the scam and sought his personal presence. It then listed the case for further hearing on January 14, 2022..Senior Advocate Gaurav Bhatia, appearing for the petitioner, told the Court that the allegations are that there was a scam of several thousand of crores, yet no significant action has been taken by the CBI in the matter..Advocate Anil Grover for CBI however, responded that a case has already been registered in the matter and the investigation is likely to be completed in six to eight months.Grover also told the court a status report has already been filed by the CBI in the matter and it now wants to file another status report in a sealed cover. The Court said it will examine both the reports on the next date of hearing..The co-location scam at the NSE came to light in January 2015 after a whistle-blower wrote to the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) informing that some brokers were given preferential treatment by the stock exchange as they were allowed to log into the NSE systems with better hardware specification while engaged in algorithmic trading. This, the whistle-blower alleged, amounted to unfair access and advantage.After investigating the allegations for three years, the SEBI imposed a fine of ₹1 crore in February this year, on NSE and ₹25 lakh each on Chitra Ramakrishna and Ravi Narain, the former managing director and vice-chairman of the exchange..Meanwhile Ray had filed a complaint with the CBI in August 2017, alleging that the co-location scam could not have happened without the active involvement of the Finance Ministry.In his complaint to the CBI, Ray also sought an investigation against Finance Ministry officials, including former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, and SEBI Officials.