A Delhi court has granted the CBI seven days’ custody of former National Stock Exchange (NSE) CEO Chitra Ramkrishna. She was arrested by the premier investigative agency from New Delhi on Sunday in the co-location scam case.
The court, in its order, said Ramkrishna must be interrogated by the Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) under CCTV monitoring. While allowing her lawyers to meet her every evening, the court has also directed CBI to ensure that Chitra Ramkrishna is subjected to a medical examination every 24 hours.
Presenting the CBI’s case before Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal, the public prosecutor said Ramkrishna was “not cooperating with the investigation” and had to be confronted with “over 2,500 incriminating emails”.
CBI also argued that the former NSE CEO “refused to disclose her previous relationship” with co-accused Anand Subramanian and even refused to recognise him.
The judge, however, questioned the CBI over the slow pace of the investigation, and why other persons named in the FIR had not been arrested so far.
“What about other accused who were named in the FIR? They are the main beneficiaries. What about them? For four years, no action was taken. FIR was in cold storage,” the judge remarked.
However, in its order granting Ramkrishna’s custody to the CBI, the court noted: “It appears that the custodial interrogation of the above accused would be required to find out the detailed modus operandi adopted by this accused person in conspiracy with the other co-accused persons involved in the present case, including co-accused Anand Subramanian, the present case may be of unimaginable magnitude”.
The court added that custodial interrogation of Chitra Ramkrishna would also be required for confronting Anand Subramanian, who is already in police custody at present.
This could help investigators to “find out the entire ramifications of the transactions in question, and also to dig out voluminous digital evidence pertaining to this case, as also to find out the role of other players in this case of swindling the institutional investors, foreign institutional investors and honest retail investors,” the court order read.
Ramkrishna will be produced before the court on March 14 for the next hearing in this case.
Prior to her arrest, the CBI had questioned her for three consecutive days, followed by searches at her residence.
The agency also roped in a senior psychologist from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory to question Ramkrishna, who served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NSE between 2013 and 2016.
The CBI arrested her on Sunday on the grounds that she was giving evasive answers during the interrogation. A court in Delhi had rejected her anticipatory bail application on Saturday.
An FIR was registered in connection with the co-location scam by CBI in 2018. The case involves a Delhi-based stockbroker who, according to the CBI, managed to gain access to information about stock trades before others.
The matter came to light after The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on February 11 charged Chitra Ramkrishna and others with unfair practices, including the appointment of Anand Subramanian as group operating officer of the NSE.
In its order, Sebi also revealed that Ramkrishna shared confidential information about the National Stock Exchange with a “mysterious yogi” via emails. Many officials familiar with the case suspect that the “mysterious yogi” was none other than Anand Subramanian.
Sebi also levied a fine of Rs 3 crore on Chitra Ramkrishna and fines of Rs 2 crore each on the NSE, Anand Subramanian and former NSE Managing Director (MD) Ravi Narian. A fine of Rs 6 lakh was also slapped on VR Narasimhan, who was the NSE’s chief regulatory officer and compliance officer.
