Special court accepts CBI closure report in NSE co-location case

A special court has accepted a closure report filed by the CBI in an offshoot of the NSE co-location scam case involving a company founded by Mumbai's former police commissioner Sanjay Pandey for auditing of two stock brokers, officials said Tuesday.

- OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI:

In its final report, the central agency has said there were violations of SEBI circulars regarding audits of brokers—SMC Global Securities Ltd and Shaastra Securities Trading Private Limited—conducted by ISec Services which was founded by Pandey, but there was "absence of sufficient material to establish criminal intent on the part of the accused persons".

No complicity of officials of National Stock Exchange (NSE) or Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in willfully allowing the brokers to submit inadequate audit reports was found during the investigation, the agency said.

The CBI had registered the FIR against ISec Services on a reference from the Enforcement Directorate. The FIR had red-flagged several violations of SEBI norms by the firm in conducting system audits of stock brokers involved in algorithmic trading using the co-location facility.