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Air Chief Marshal A P Singh on Tuesday cautioned against the implementation of the theaterisation plan in a hurry and proposed the setting up of a joint planning and coordination centre in Delhi comprising top military brass to ensure tri-services synergy.In a fireside chat at the Army War College, the Chief of Air Staff, referring to proposed theatre commands, said creating a new structure while disrupting everything is not a very good idea at this point of time.The hugely significant remarks by the Air Chief Marshal came three-and-a-half months after India carried out Operation Sindoor that reflected various elements of synergy among the three services.In his remarks, Singh said the operation once again established the "primacy" of air power even as he highlighted the tri-services coordination during the May 7 to 10 conflict with Pakistan.The Chief of Air Staff said that Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan played a "very big role" during Operation Sindoor. He highlighted how Gen Chauhan and the three service chiefs worked closely in planning and executing the operation."I personally feel that having a joint planning and coordination centre in Delhi is what is required," he said, suggesting that it should be kept under the Chiefs of Staff Committee directions that can be issued jointly.With Gen Chauhan listening, Air Chief Marshal Singh said that "centrally planned" decisions can be executed under a de-centralised framework. "That will work out the best."The IAF chief was replying to a question on the proposed theatre commands."But yes, we can start with this first, implement it and see how it pans out. If we need any more structure, we can think about it. But disrupting everything and making one structure now at this time, I do not think it is a very good idea," he said.The Chief of Air Staff also said that India should not be inspired by any other country, like the US, in rolling out theatre commands."Everybody has their own requirements. We need to think about what we need there, and then only we should go about it. Otherwise, we will go wrong," Singh said."We should not just come under any pressure and say we have to implement it now. Somehow, we have to do it. It should not be done this way. I think we can stand our ground and discuss things," he said.The Air Chief Marshal said there is a need to prepare for tomorrow's war."You cannot have a theatre commander sitting somewhere... now whom they talk to, where do they get directions from. Phones are available but generally that does not work like that," he said."I feel having joint planning and coordination at the apex level is what is required. If directions go from it, things will work out. We don't actually need another structure at the lower level," Singh said.Under the theaterisation model, the government seeks to integrate the capabilities of the army, air force and navy and optimally utilise their resources for wars and operations.As per the theaterisation plan, each of the theatre commands will have units of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, and all of them will work as a single entity looking after security challenges in a specified geographical territory.At present, the Army, Navy and Air Force have separate commands.

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. 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. Under the co-location facility, the NSE allowed brokers to place their servers in the NSE's data centre for a charge, enabling them to have faster access to the price feed distributed by the stock exchange. The alleged abuse of the facility is being probed by the agency in a separate case in which former NSE MD and CEO Chitra Ramkrishna was also arrested. She is now out on bail. The FIR regarding alleged audit lapses said that ISec Services had conducted audits of two "high risk brokers", SMC Global and Shaastra, in a fraudulent manner when the co-location 'scam' was going on. Pandey had founded the company in 2001 and had quit as its director in May 2006. His son and mother later took charge of the company. The central probe agency had submitted its closure report in the case in 2023 too, but the special court had rejected it and directed the agency to conduct further investigation in the matter. After conducting further investigation, the CBI recently filed its closure report, stating that the stock brokers planned with ISec to evade third-party audits with the intent to conceal their irregular activities. However, due to a lack of material, it is not possible to conclusively determine the precise nature of the unlawful activities, the agency said. The CBI did not find "sufficient prosecutable evidence" of actual compromise of the trading system arising out of audit lapses, particularly in the absence of any resultant price-volume market abuse, like circular trading and pump and dump. In the closure report, the agency stated that NSE failed to establish a robust mechanism for verifying the authenticity of audit reports and lacked a mechanism for strictly implementing SEBI guidelines. The failure to comply with the strict SEBI guidelines and submitting audit reports, which were only a paper exercise, "cannot be categorised as an offence of cheating or forgery", it said. The agency said the NSE and SEBI did not place adequate safeguards to ensure compliance with the circulars, which have been violated in the process. It has given recommendations to the SEBI chairman to ponder upon. Due to time lag and absence of correct contemporaneous system audits, evidence is not sufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the precise nature of lapses, it said. On the directives of the special court to conduct further investigation in 2023, the CBI undertook the analysis of trading data and call logs of the relevant period of the trading firms- SMC Global and Shaastra- audited by the ISec. The probe faced limitations because the SEBI circular, which directed brokers to preserve call records for three years, was issued on March 26, 2018. However, during the period under investigation, from October 1, 2013, to September 30, 2015, no such legal mandate existed for SMC Global. In the case of Shaastra, there was no question of maintaining client call logs because it was a proprietary trading firm, the agency said. It is SEBI's "bounden duty to protect the interest of common investors" in the securities market as well as promote and develop the securities market, and it is hoped that they will perform their statutory duty with real intent, Special Judge Gagandeep Singh said while accepting the closure report on Monday. Their acts should not merely remain on paper; rather, strict implementation iswarranted, he said.