Chitra Ramakrishna, former CEO of National Stock Exchange (NSE)
Highlight
- On March 6, the CBI had arrested Chitra Ramakrishna, former MD and CEO of NSE.
- Chitra Ramakrishna was arrested in the co-location scam case
- IT had earlier raided various locations linked to Ramakrishna in Mumbai and Chennai.
A Delhi court on Monday sent former National Stock Exchange (NSE) managing director and chief executive officer Chitra Ramakrishna to 14-day judicial custody in connection with the co-location scam case.
Special Judge Sanjeev Agarwal ordered that Ramakrishna be produced before the court on March 28 next. The CBI produced the accused before the court at the end of his 7-day custody and requested to send him to judicial custody.
Ramakrishna was arrested by the investigating agency on March 6, a day after the court rejected his anticipatory bail plea.
The CBI had recently questioned Ramakrishna in this case. The Income Tax (IT) department had earlier raided various premises linked to Ramakrishna in Mumbai and Chennai. The arrests were made in a case related to the co-location scam, for which the FIR 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 computer servers of market exchanges to stock brokers.
In the co-location facility provided by NSE, brokers can place their servers within the stock exchange premises to give them faster access to the markets. It has been alleged that some brokers with the connivance of insiders made windfall profits by misusing algorithms and co-location facility.
Earlier, capital markets regulator SEBI had penalized NSE, Ramakrishna and Ravi Narayan and two other officials for lapses in recruitment at the senior level. Ravi Narayan was the MD and CEO of NSE from April 1994 to March 2013, while Chitra Ramakrishna was the MD and CEO of NSE from April 2013 to December 2016.
SEBI found that the NSE and its top officials violated the securities contract norms relating to the appointment of Anand Subramaniam as Group Operating Officer and Advisor to the Managing Director.