Nearly 10 months after arresting Chitra Ramkrishna, the former MD and CEO of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in the co-location trading scam, the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) is still awaiting the permission from the board of the exchange to prosecute her, sources told businessline. Ramkrishna was arrested by the CBI in March 2022 nearly four years after an FIR was registered by the agency in the scam. The co-location scam relates to misuse of NSE’s high-tech trading infrastructure.
Similarly, NSE’s longest serving MD Ravi Narain was arrested in September 2022 in the same matter and permission to prosecute him is pending too. Both Ramkrishna and Narain were granted bail by a Delhi court in the co-location case and it was one of the reasons that the CBI could not secure permission to prosecute them, the sources said.
While Narain is out of jail, Ramkrishna is lodged in prison in connection with another case involving illegal tapping of NSE employee phones. Both Ramkrishna and Narain were at the helm at NSE when the co-location scam was at its peak. Narain also sought bail on medical grounds.
Permission from board
Usually, the CBI has to seek permission for persecution from the government authorities only in cases involving public servants like bureaucrats or government employees. The CBI had also sought permission from the board of ICICI Bank for prosecuting its former MD Chanda Kochhar, which was granted by the bank in December 2022. Incidentally, Girish Chandra Chaturvedi, a retired bureaucrat, who is the chairman of NSE’s board, is also heading the board of ICICI Bank.
NSE did not respond to two e-mail queries from businessline on the matter or the reason for the delay in giving a sanction to the CBI. But sources said that the exchange has sought legal opinion on the matter. Though the CBI has filed its charge-sheet against Ramkrishna, it has told the court that it was investigating the case further for various links. As of now, CBI has brought a limited charge of bad governance practice by Ramkrishna for appointing Anand Subramanian to a key position at the NSE without required qualifications or experience.