New Delhi: A Delhi court Monday granted CBI seven-day custodial interrogation of former MD & CEO of National Stock Exchange (NSE) Chitra Ramakrishna in NSE co-location scam case. Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal passed the order after hearing arguments from CBI and the counsel appearing for accused. The probe agency had sought her 14-day custodial interrogation.
The CBI arrested Chitra Ramakrishna Sunday after her anticipatory bail application was dismissed by the court Saturday.
In its application before the court, the CBI alleged that the electronic devices recovered are being analysed. Those would be used for conducting further examination of Ramakrishna. It alleged that she was evasive and has continuously misguided the investigation officer by giving wrong statements.
The CBI alleged that Ramakrishna’s custodial interrogation was needed to unearth the criminal conspiracy and the role of other NSE officials and brokers in the company.
“She is also required to be confronted with co-accused Anand Subramanian, who is already in police custody of CBI, to understand the magnitude and scope of the criminal conspiracy. She is also required to be confronted with digital evidence available on record,” the agency told the court.
The CBI further submitted that the material already collected in the present case show that Ramakrishna in conspiracy with Subramanian had improperly hired him by coercing the HR department of NSE.
“Thereafter, she in conspiracy with Subramanian influenced the officials of NSE to facilitate him in having access to important decision making processes of the NSE. During the same period M/s OPG Securities was gaining undue advantages in NSE by logging into secondary server,” it the CBI said.
Also read: Anticipatory bail plea of Chitra Ramakrishna dismissed
The CBI said that during Ramakrishna’s tenure as Joint MD, NSE, the co-location was conceptualized and implemented. Ramakrishna was appointed as MD and CEO of NSE on April 1, 2013.
“Investigation has revealed that during the period 2013-16 after accused Chitra Ramakrishna took over as MD & CEO of NSE, OPG Securities Pvt Ltd was allowed to connect to secondary server of the COLO-TBT Dissemination server for over 300 trading days causing it undue gain,” the probe agency said.
It is further submitted that OPG Securities Pvt Ltd was warned repeatedly in 2012 that accessing the secondary server is a violation of the rules/guidelines of the NSE, it said.
“NSE however stopped issuing such warnings to OPG Securities without any justifiable reasons during 2013 when Ramkrishna was MD & CEO of NSE. Investigation has also revealed that Muralidharan Natarajan, the CTO of NSETECH (a subsidiary of NSE), was responsible for putting in place the co-location architecture at NSE. He was reporting to Ramakrishna,” the agency told the court.
It further alleged that Ramkrishna had shared internal confidential information of NSE including its organizational structure, dividend scenario, financial results, human resources policy and related issues, response to regulator, future projects etc to an e-mail ID during the period 2013 to 2016. “With whom all this information was further shared, is under investigation,” the CBI said.