The CBI arrested former National Stock Exchange CEO Chitra Ramkrishna in the co-location scam case on Sunday.
Ramkrishna was arrested in New Delhi and taken for a medical checkup, according to officials, after which she was later lodged in lockup at the CBI headquarters.
The CBI had grilled Ramkrishna for three days in February and carried out searches at her residence on 24th and 25th of that month. She had not given proper responses at that time.
The central probe agency had also used the services of a senior psychologist of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, who also questioned her.
The officials said that the psychologist had also come to the conclusion that Ramkrishna was evasive in responses, leaving no other option for the agency but to arrest her.
A special CBI court had rejected Ramkrishna’s anticipatory bail application on Saturday, according to the officials.
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The CBI, which was probing the co-location scam since 2018 against a Delhi-based stock broker, swung into action after a Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) report showed alleged abuse of power by the then top brass of the NSE.
The officials said that investigation is going on in the alleged role of the then senior NSE officials who were looking into the co-location facility, which is understood to have given “unfair advantage and wrongful gain” to certain stockbrokers including OPG securities, an accused in the case, at the cost of others.
The officials said that co-location facility in NSE was a “major policy decision” in which the then MD and CEO and other senior officials would have played “decisive role”.
The CBI probe has shown that Ramkrishna was appointed as the Joint MD in 2009 and remained in the position till March 31, 2013, with the power of DMD.
Ramkrishna got elevated as MD and CEO on April 1, 2013.
The CBI has alleged that it was during this period that the co-location facility was started by NSE.
In the co-location facility offered by NSE, brokers could place their servers within the stock exchange premises, giving them faster access to the markets. It is alleged that some brokers, in connivance with insiders, abused the algorithm and the co-location facility to make windfall profits.
The CBI has also found that Muralidharan Natarajan, the CTO of NSETECH (a subsidiary of NSE), who was responsible for setting up co-location architecture at the NSE, was directly reporting to Ramkrishna.
On February 25, the CBI had arrested former NSE group operating officer Anand Subramanian after expanding its probe into the co-location scam in the exchange, following “fresh facts” in the SEBI report that referred to a mysterious yogi, guiding the actions of Ramkrishna.
The SEBI had charged Ramkrishna and others with alleged governance lapses in the appointment of Subramanian as the chief strategic advisor and his re-designation as group operating officer and advisor to MD on February 11.
Subramanian was allegedly referred to as the “yogi” in the forensic audit, but SEBI in its final report had rejected the claim.
Ramkrishna, who succeeded former CEO Ravi Narain in 2013, had appointed Subramanian as her advisor, who was later elevated as group operating officer (GOO) at a fat pay cheque of ₹4.21 crore annually.
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Subramanian’s controversial appointment and subsequent elevation, besides crucial decisions, were guided by an unidentified person, who Ramkrishna claimed was “a formless mysterious yogi dwelling in the Himalayas”, a probe into her email exchanges during the SEBI-ordered audit showed.
SEBI has levied a fine of ₹3 crore on Ramkrishna, ₹2 crore each on NSE, Subramanian, former NSE MD and CEO Ravi Narain, and ₹6 lakh on V R Narasimhan, who was the chief regulatory officer and compliance officer.
Ramkrishna had left NSE in 2016.
(With inputs from Agencies)