NSE case: Delhi court reserves order on Chitra Ramkrishna's bail plea

A Delhi court on Thursday reserved its order on the bail plea of National Stock Exchange's (NSE) former CEO and MD Chitra Ramkrishna, who was arrested in connection with a money laundering case in connection with the co-location scam that also involved phone tapping of NSEs employees between 2009 and 2017.

The order on the bail application of Ramkrishna, who was arrested on July 14 by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), was reserved by the Rouse Avenue court.

During the previous hearing on Monday before Special judge Sunena Sharma, the ED counsel sought adjournment for addressing arguments on the ground that Special Public Prosecutor Zoaib Hussain who will address arguments on the bail application is not available as he is busy in the Delhi High Court.

The court had heard the arguments on the bail application of Ramkrishna from senior advocate, Rebecca M. John, assisted by advocates Shivam Batra and Rony Oommen John.

The co-location scam denotes how some of the brokers, who in the co-location facility offered by the NSE, could place their servers within the stock exchange premises giving them faster access to the markets, had, in connivance with insiders, abused the algorithm and the facility to make windfall profits.

The CBI has been probing the case since May 2018. Recently, market regulator SEBI had imposed a fine of Rs 3 crore on Ramkrishna, following the market regulator finding that she allegedly shared vital inputs about the NSE with a mysterious Himalayan yogi, including information on "organisational structure, dividend scenario, financial results, human resource policies and related issues, response to regulator".

On April 1, 2013, Ramkrishna became the CEO and MD of NSE. She brought Arvind Subramanian to the NSE as her advisor. Subramanian was made the Chief Strategic Advisor of NSE. He served at this post between 2013 and 2015 before being made Group Operations Officer and Advisor to the MD between 2015 and 2016, despite having no exposure to the capital market. Subramanian quit the NSE in October 2016 and Ramkrishna left in December 2016.

--IANS

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