NSE Scam NSE Scam: CBI court rejects Chitra Ramakrishna's anticipatory bail plea
A special CBI court has rejected the anticipatory bail plea of former National Stock Exchange (NSE) chief executive Chitra Ramkrishna in the NSE colocation case, media reports said.
CNBC-TV 18 reported on Saturday that the court held that there were no grounds for grant of Ramkrishna’s anticipatory bail.
According to the report, the former NSE top boss did not cooperate with CBI's investigation and the agency had to rope in a senior forensic psychologist to extract the truth.
She tried to evade the truth in her responses, the forensic psychologist observed, the report said.
Anand Subramanian, who did not have proper qualifications, was appointed as a consultant with NSE by Chitra Ramkrishna without following due procedure.
CBI started interrogating Ramkrishna in February in connection with certain irregularities.
It issued lookout notices against Ramakrishna, former NSE CFO Anand Subramanian and Ravi Narain for the investigation.
Ramkrishna and Subramanian have been barred from dealing with any market infrastructure institution or any intermediary registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for three years, while Narain has been barred for two years.
The NSE colocation case is related to multiple events that took place one after the other where some private individuals and unknown NSE and SEBI officials were accused of preferential access to the NSE's server architecture and misuse of the colocation facility, stated the report.
The scam came to light after a whistleblower wrote to the market regulator in January 2015, detailing the flaws in the NSE’s colocation system, and the way in which some brokers had used those loopholes in connivance with some officials of the NSE.
Subramanian was the chief strategic advisor from April 1, 2013 before he was re-designated from April 1, 2015 until October 21, 2016.
Ramkrishna was the CEO and Managing Director of the National Stock Exchange from 2013 to 2016 before she quit citing "personal reasons".
She is under probe for an alleged "glaring breach" of regulations involving sharing confidential financial data with a 'yogi' living in the Himalayas.
The 'tick by tick' case was registered against OPG Securities; its Managing Director, Sanjay Gupta; Ajay Shah, who helped develop the software.
It also booked unknown officials from the NSE and regulatory body SEBI for alleged stock market manipulation from 2010 to 2014.
It has been alleged that Sanjay Gupta had unfair access to this feed and this enabled his company, OPG Security Pvt Ltd, to get access to financial data a split second faster than his rivals.
Ramakrishna and others were searched by the Income Tax Department in connection with the allegations that she shared the bourse's financial projections, business plans and board agenda with a spiritual guru.
The guru was running the exchange and Ramkrishna was "a puppet", SEBI has claimed.
Ramkrishna has, however, claimed the information-sharing did not compromise NSE operations.
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