New Delhi / Chennai : The CBI has arrested Chitra Ramkrishna, the former MD and CEO of National Stock Exchange, in the co-location scam. A team of officials has been questioning her, sources said.
More than five years after she was ousted, Chitra has been accused of abusing her position to facilitate exploitation of the exchange’s server architecture to provide preferential access to a stock broker.
She is accused of grave lapses at India’s largest stock market including sharing confidential information with an individual she dubbed a ‘Himalayan yogi’.
The arrest came just a day after a Delhi Court dismissed her request for a pre-arrest bail plea and pulled up the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI for inaction and being ‘lackadaisical’ in the probe against her over the last four years.
Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal also observed that market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has been ‘too kind’ to the accused, that she faced serious charges and her sustained custodial interrogation would be required to dig out the truth.
The CBI had argued against her pre-arrest plea, claiming that she was ‘evasive’ and not cooperating with the investigating officials.
The agency conducted Chitra Ramkrishna’s questioning for three days during which she allegedly did not give proper responses to the investigators, the officials said.
On 25 February, the CBI arrested former NSE group operating officer Anand Subramanian after expanding its probe into a co-location scam in the exchange, following ‘fresh facts’ in a SEBI report that referred to the mysterious ‘yogi’ guiding the actions of Chitra Ramkrishna.
On 11 February, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had levied penalties on Chitra Ramkrishna, Subramanian, and former NSE MD Ravi Narain on account of multiple violations, including irregularities in Subramanian’s appointment as a Chief Strategic Advisor and his re-designation as the Group Operating Officer and Advisor to the then NSE MD.
Subsequently, the Income-Tax Department had also conducted searches on the premises of Chitra Ramkrishna and Subramanian in Mumbai and Chennai, while the CBI issued ‘look out’ circulars against the three, following which their statements were recorded by the agency.