Indian police arrest former official at top bourse NSE - source

FILE PHOTO: A security guard walks past the logo of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) inside its building in Mumbai, India, May 28, 2019. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo

MUMBAI (Reuters) -India's federal police arrested a former senior official of the country's largest stock exchange, a police source said on Friday, as part of an investigation into alleged corporate governance lapses at the bourse.

Anand Subramanian, a former top adviser to the National Stock Exchange's (NSE) former CEO Chitra Ramkrishna, was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with a 2018 case involving allegations that the bourse provided some high-frequency traders unfair access to speed up algorithmic trading, the source said.

A Feb. 11 order by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said Ramkrishna had for years shared confidential NSE information and sought crucial advice from an outsider she described as a Himalayan yogi.

The SEBI probe also found that the purported guru had substantial influence over the appointment of Subramanian, without any capital market experience, directly as an adviser to Ramkrishna with inadequate documentation and a salary higher than most senior NSE officials.

Subramanian was arrested in the southern city of Chennai, where he has been questioned in recent days, the source said. More details were not immediately available.

Subramanian did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The arrest comes days after the India's market regulator imposed penalties on NSE, Ramkrishna, Subramanian and other former officials for governance failures and a "glaring breach" of regulations.

The CBI stepped up its investigation after SEBI's order and has also questioned Ramkrishna in recent days. It also both prohibited both the former NSE CEO and Subramanian from leaving India for the time being.

NSE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The exchange has said it is "committed to highest standards of governance and transparency", calling the issue "almost 6-9 years old".

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Abhirup Roy; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Kim Coghill)