The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday arrested former NSE MD Chitra Ramkrishna in a money laundering case connected with alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping of stock exchange employees, after getting the nod from a Delhi court to probe the matter.
Special Judge Sunena Sharma allowed four-day custodial interrogation of Ramkrishna.
“The ED has sufficient grounds to proceed with the investigating into the allegation of money laundering and to seek custodial interrogation of the accused to unearth the deeper conspiracy, the involvement of other accused persons, and their entire modus operandi. Accordingly, the accused is remanded to ED custody till July 18,” the judge said.
The former NSE MD was produced in the court from Tihar central jail on a production warrant issued by the judge against the accused on a plea filed by the ED. After she was produced, the ED took the court’s permission to interrogate her.
Later, the ED formally arrested Ramkrishna on the grounds of non-cooperation and again produced her before the court and sought nine-day custodial interrogation. The court, however, granted four-day custody to the agency.
Ramkrishna was already arrested by the CBI in a separate case and is in judicial custody.
Seeking her custody, ED’s Special Public Prosecutor NK Matta had told the court that Ramkrishna was “directly or indirectly indulging in or knowingly assisted in and was actually involved in all process or activity connected with the proceeds of crime including its concealment, possession, acquisition or use and further in projecting or claiming it as untainted property.”
He submitted that her custodial interrogation was essential to establish a money trail of the proceeds of the crime.
According to the ED, from 2009 to 2017, former NSE CEO Ravi Narain, Ramkrishna, Executive Vice-President Ravi Varanasi, and Head (Premises) Mahesh Haldipur and others conspired to cheat NSEand its employees and for the purpose engaged iSEC Services Pvt Ltd for illegal interception of phone calls ofemployees of NSE in the guise of doing periodic study of cyber vulnerabilities of NSE.