The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has recorded the statement of senior journalist Sucheta Dalal in connection with the National Stock Exchange (NSE) co-location scam.
Ms. Dalal has issued a statement through her Twitter handle confirming that she was called to Delhi on July 16 for the purpose as she had broken the co-location scam story in June 2015.
The NSE had earlier filed a ₹100-crore defamation case against her and Moneylife, which it withdrew after paying ₹50 lakh as ordered by the court, she said.
The senior journalist said just ahead of the Delhi meeting, she was told that the agency wanted to record her statement pertaining to “Ken Fong”, the name used by a whistle-blower whose email to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), copied to her, was first reported by her.
Ms. Dalal was asked if she knew who Ken Fong was, to which she responded in negative. She was also asked whether she knew former Mumbai Police chief Sanjay Pandey, whose previous firm iSec Services was under the scanner.
She told the agency that although she knew him since about 1994-95, as most of the Mumbai-based journalists did, she had nothing to do with him and his business deals, specifically those with the NSE under its former managing directors Ravi Narain and Chitra Ramkrishna.
