SEBI disposes of case against NSE, its former employees in co-location case

New Delhi: SEBI on Friday dismissed regulatory violation charges against the NSE and its seven former employees, including Chitra Ramkrishna and Ravi Narain, in the matter of the co-location facility, citing the absence of sufficient evidence.

"Due to the absence of sufficient material/evidence/objective facts on record in this case, the test of ‘preponderance of probability’ fails to produce enough justification for the establishment of collusion/connivance between OPG and its directors with Noticees (NSE and its seven employees)," SEBI said in its 83-page order.

Apart from NSE, Ramkrishna and Narain, SEBI has dropped charges against Anand Subramanian, Ravindra Apte, Umesh Jain, Mahesh Soparkar and Deviprasad Singh.

The case relates to the alleged preferential access given to certain broking firms in the form of 'dark fibre' at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) to connect across the colocation facilities before other members.

The dark fibre or unlit fibre, with respect to network connectivity, refers to an already laid but unused or passive optical fibre, which is not connected to active electronics/equipment, and does not have other data flowing through it and is available for use in fibre-optic communication.