Court rejects bail petitions of EX-NSE boss, Subramanian
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Thursday dismissed the bail plea of former MD of National Stock Exchange Chitra Ramkrishna in a co-location scam case, saying there were no sufficient grounds to grant her the relief.
Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal also dismissed the bail plea of co-accused Anand Subramanian, who had been appointed chief strategic advisor and later re-designated as Group Operating Officer and Advisor to MD during Ramkrishna’s tenure.
Ramkrishna is charged with leaking sensitive information to the co-accused and others, initially claiming that she was acting on the counsel of a Himalayan “yogi”. She has also been accused of financial misdeeds relating to fixation and frequent revision of Subramanian’s compensation in a disproportionate manner. Subramanian was allegedly referred to as the “yogi” in the forensic audit, but the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), in its final report, had rejected the claim.
Senior advocate N Hariharan appearing for Ramkrishna, contended that she being the MD, had the bandwidth to determine the salary of any consultant and such emoluments were within such a bandwidth on the basis the experience he brought to the table. The senior counsel questioned if it was Subramaniam, then where was the breach in confidentiality.
He further argued that the investigation agency had filed a chargesheet and Ramkrishna had spent almost two months in custody. The CBI had claimed that Ramkrishna was involved in a serious offence affecting the integrity and functioning of the largest stock exchange of the country and the robustness/ integrity of the financial system.
“Ramakrishna by gross abuse of her official position illegally and arbitrarily appointed Anand Subramanian, who did not have any prior experience,” the agency had alleged.
The CBI had further submitted that the co-location architecture was out in place under Ramakrishna’s tenure as the MD, and Muralidharan Natrajan, who was responsible for putting in place the co-location architecture directly reported to her. The agency had told the court that Ramkrishna did not bring the fact that Subramanian was elevated to Group Operating Officer and his nomination before the Remuneration Committee, thus granting him huge benefits. The agency submitted that Ramkrishna had also influenced the replies filed by the NSE to the queries posed by the Sebi.