Ex-NSE MD arrested, sent to 4-day ED custody
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday arrested former NSE MD Chitra Ramakrishna 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 Ramakrishna.
"ED has sufficient grounds to proceed with the investigation 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 the accused was produced, the ED took permission from the court to interrogate her.
Later, the ED formally arrested Ramakrishnan on the ground of non-cooperation and again produced her before the court and urged for her nine-day custodial interrogation.
The court, however, granted her four-day custody to the agency.
Ramakrishna was arrested by the CBI in a separate case and was currently in judicial custody. According to the probe agency, during the year 2009 to 2017, former NSE CEO Ravi Narain, Ramkrishna, Executive Vice President Ravi Varanasi, and Head (Premises) Mahesh Haldipur and others conspired together to cheat NSE and its employees and for said purpose, iSEC Services Pvt Ltd was engaged for illegal interception of phone calls of employees of NSE in the guise of Periodic Study of Cyber vulnerabilities of NSE.
Ramakrishna's arrest also comes around a month after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) found 18 entities, including those linked to her and former NSE group operating officer (GOO) Anand Subramanian, and the NSE, guilty of collusion in the 2015 dark-fibre case.
The capital market regulator imposed a cumulative penalty of Rs 43.8 crore on the 18 entities, with the NSE alone slapped a Rs 7 crore fine. Ravi Varanasi has been fined Rs 5 crore, while Ramakrishna has been handed a penalty of Rs 5 crore.
