Former CEO of National Stock Exchange (NSE) Chitra Ramkrishna was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday in the NSE co-location case. Recently, the Delhi Court had picked up CBI for inaction and being “lackadaisical” in the probe against the accused in the last four years.
Ramkrishna had applied for a pre-arrest bail plea which was quashed by the Delhi court. Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal 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 issued a lookout circular against Chitra Rama Krishna, Ravi Narayan and Anand Subernium so that they could not leave the country.
According to CBI sources, Anand Subramanian, who was appointed by Chitra Rama Krishna was interrogated continuously by the CBI in Chennai for the last three days. Apart from this, important documents related to this case, electronic evidences have been recovered from the SEBI office in Mumbai and an investigation is on.
The arrest was made in the case related to the co-location scam, the FIR for which was registered in May 2018, amid fresh revelations about irregularities at the country's largest stock exchange.
The CBI is probing the alleged improper dissemination of information from the computer servers of the market exchanges to the stockbrokers. Ramakrishna and another former CEO Ravi Narayan as well as two other officials have been penalised by the SEBI for lapses in recruitment at the senior level.
Ravi Narain was the MD and CEO of the National Stock Exchange from April 1994 till March 2013, while Chitra Ramkrishna was the MD and CEO of the NSE from April 2013 to December 2016.
The market regulator observed that the NSE and its top executives violated securities contract norms relating to the appointment of Anand Subramaniam as group operating officer and advisor to the managing director.
The co-location scam dates back to 2013 to 2016. At the time, Chitra Ramakrishna was working as NSE MD. Chitra had resigned from NSE in the year 2016.
Recently, the Income Tax Department had raided her house in Mumbai. Chitra's case came to light after SEBI imposed a penalty of Rs 3 crore on her for rigging appointments at the country's largest exchange and leaking secret information to an anonymous person.
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