The Delhi High Court has asked the CBI,
which is probing the National Stock Exchange (NSE) co-location scam, to file an
affidavit mentioning the update in the case in view of the petition filed by
journalist Shantanu Guha Ray.
Ray has alleged that despite the whistleblower providing
details of the scam nearly three-and-half years ago, nothing
"substantial" has happened in the case.
A division bench headed by Chief Justice Satish
Chandra Sharma was hearing Ray's counsel, who contended that despite filing
status reports before and now, no action has been taken.
He urged before the bench that something should come
on record.
Earlier, petitioner's counsel Senior Advocate Gaurav
Bhatia had said that even though the scam is of multiple thousand of crores, no
solid action has been taken.
To this, CBI's counsel had said that a case has
already been registered and in six to eight months, the investigation will
likely get over.
The case is of the year 2015, when a whistleblower
wrote to the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)
about stock exchange being biased with some brokers and favouring some by
allowing them to log into the NSE systems with better hardware specifications
while engaging in algorithmic trading.
The person had alleged that it has resulted in unfair
access and advantage.
Post the three-year investigation, the SEBI imposed a
fine of Rs 1 crore in 2021 on NSE and Rs 25 lakh each on Chitra Ramakrishna and
Ravi Narain, the former managing director and vice-chairman of the exchange.
Ray had filed a complaint with the CBI in
2017, alleging that the co-location scam could not have taken place without the
Finance Ministry's involvement.
He had also sought an investigation against Finance
Ministry officials, including former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, and SEBI
Officials.