NSE Scam: Court Denies Bail to Chitra Ramkrishna, Anand Subramanian

Chitra Ramkrishna, who was the first woman to head the National Stock Exchange, was arrested on 6 March. 

(Photo Courtesy: Facebook/KMC GROUP)

A special CBI court in Delhi on Thursday, 12 May, refused to grant bail to former NSE head Chitra Ramkrishna and former employee Anand Subramanian, who were arrested by the probe agency in connection with the NSE co-location case.

The special CBI judge of the Rouse Avenue court dismissed their bail applications after hearing the submissions.

Both Ramkrishna and Subramanian, currently lodged in Tihar Jail under judicial custody, have been charge sheeted under various sections of the IPC.

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.

Background

The CBI has been probing the case since May 2018.

Recently, the 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 1 April 2013, Ramkrishna became the CEO and MD of NSE. She brought 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.

Previously working as a mid-level manager in Balmer and Lawrie, he had seen his salary increase from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 1.68 crore annually, and then to Rs 4.21 crore.

Subramanian quit NSE in October 2016 and Ramkrishna left in December 2016. The CBI swung into action in the case in 2018 and has been probing the matter since then.