Former head of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) Chitra Ramkrishna was arrested by the CBI from Delhi late Sunday evening in connection with the co-location scam case. A medical checkup was conducted on her, following which Ramkrishna was lodged in a lockup at the CBI headquarters. The probe agency had grilled Ramkrishna for three consecutive days and carried out searches at her residence, officials said, adding that her responses have not been proper.
The CBI had also used the services of a senior psychologist of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory who also questioned the former NSE head. The officials said the psychologist had also come to the conclusion that she was evasive in responses leaving no option for the agency, but to arrest her.
The co-location case pertains to the allegations that certain brokers received unfair preferential access to NSE servers. Stock prices on the trading screen keep changing every microsecond.
Ramkrishna’s arrest comes a day after a Delhi court on Saturday dismissed her pre-arrest bail plea in the co-location case, pulling up the CBI for inaction and being lackadaisical in the probe against the accused in the last four years.
Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal had also observed that market regulator SEBI has been “too kind” to the accused as he dismissed the anticipatory bail application of Ramkrishna, noting that she is facing grave allegations and her sustained custodial interrogation would be required to dig out the truth.
The CBI had recently questioned Ramkrishna in the matter. The Income Tax (IT) Department earlier raided various premises linked to Ramkrishna in Mumbai and Chennai. Ramkrishna has also been on the radar of the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
On February 25, the CBI had arrested former NSE group operating officer Anand Subramanian after expanding its probe into the co-location scam in the exchange following “fresh facts” in the Sebi report that referred to a mysterious yogi guiding the actions of Ramkrishna. The Securities and Exchange Board of India on February 11 had charged Ramkrishna and others with alleged governance lapses in the appointment of Subramanian as the chief strategic advisor and his re-designation as group operating officer and advisor to MD.
Subramanian was allegedly referred to as the “yogi” in the forensic audit but Sebi in its final report had rejected the claim. Ramkrishna, who succeeded former CEO Ravi Narain in 2013, had appointed Subramanian as her advisor who was later elevated as group operating officer (GOO) at a fat pay cheque of Rs 4.21 crore annually.
Subramanian’s controversial appointment and subsequent elevation, besides crucial decisions, were guided by an unidentified person who Ramkrishna claimed was a formless mysterious yogi dwelling in the Himalayas, a probe into Ramkrishna’s email exchanges during the Sebi-ordered audit showed. Sebi has levied a fine of Rs 3 crore on Ramkrishna, Rs 2 crore each on NSE, Subramanian, former NSE MD and CEO Ravi Narain, and Rs 6 lakh on V R Narasimhan, who was the chief regulatory officer and compliance officer. Ramkrishna had left NSE in 2016.
(With PTI inputs)
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