The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested Anand Subramanian, a former group operating officer (GOO) of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), in connection with its investigation into a bourse manipulation case that occurred in 2018.

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“Subramanian was arrested by a team of officials in Chennai late on Thursday night. He will be produced in a competent court today,” a CBI official told the Indian Express.

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The CBI had earlier interrogated Subramanian for three days, concluding the questioning on February 21. It has previously questioned former MD-CEO Chitra Ramkrishna and former CEO Ravi Narain. While Ramkrishna was questioned on Friday, Narain was questioned on Saturday.

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A CBI team went to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) office in Mumbai earlier this week to gather documents connected to the case.

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According to the CBI, the interrogations were conducted in response to a Sebi report alleging Ramkrishna had been exchanging confidential NSE information with a “Himalayan Yogi” and indicting her for Subramanian’s appointment in violation of norms.

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Sebi fined Ramkrishna and a few others two weeks ago for allegedly violating securities contract laws in the appointment of Subramanian as GOO and advisor to the MD. Sebi said she was steered by a “yogi” in the appointment of Subramanian.

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Following the revelation, the Income Tax Department inspected the residences of Ramkrishna and Subramanian as part of its investigation into allegations of unlawful gains earned by passing on internal exchange information to a third party.

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The 2018 case involves allegations of preferential access to the trading system for some brokers via the NSE’s co-location facility (where brokers can buy “rack space” for their servers), early login, and “dark fibre,” which can provide a trader with split-second faster access to the exchange’s data feed. Even a split-second advantage is said to be capable of generating a trader substantial profits.

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Sanjay Gupta, the owner and promoter of Delhi-based OPG Securities Pvt Ltd, and others were arrested in the case. According to the CBI, Gupta misused the NSE server architecture between 2010 and 2014, engaging in criminal conspiracy with unknown NSE personnel and even bribing SEBI officials

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“Gupta, with the help of his brother-in-law Aman Kokrady and other unknown persons, managed the data centre staff of NSE, who passed the information regarding switching on time of NSE exchange servers. Further, unknown officials of NSE gave OPG Securities Pvt Ltd access to servers that were technologically latest and least crowded at that particular period. This helped OPG Securities Pvt Ltd. in being mostly the first one to log in on the exchange server of the NSE,” the CBI FIR said.

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A whistleblower initially raised the suspicions of unfair access in January 2015. The whistleblower complained to Sebi that a few brokers were able to get into the NSE system with higher hardware specs while engaged in algorithmic trading, giving them an unfair advantage. Algorithmic trading, often known as “algo” in the market, refers to orders issued at superfast speeds via the application of complex mathematical models that entail the automated execution of a trade.

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According to a Sebi technical advisory committee report, OPG Securities routinely logged in first on chosen TBT (tick-by-tick) servers on most trading days from 2010 to 2014, and also had access to servers with better hardware. At this point, Gupta is accused of bribing Sebi officials in exchange for a favourable ruling in its investigation.

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Ramkrishna served as NSE’s MD and CEO from April 2013 to December 2016, whereas Narain held the position from April 1994 till March 2013.