A special CBI Court on Saturday rejected former National Stock Exchange (NSE) MD and CEO Chitra Ramakrishna’s anticipatory bail. She is now likely to get arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the NSE-Himalayan Yogi case.
The CBI, which is probing Chitra’s links with a ‘yogi who lives in the Himalayas’, opposed her bail plea. The investigation agency had earlier arrested NSE’s former group operating officer Anand Subramanian from Chennai in connection with the case.
Subramanian has been remanded to CBI custody till March 6.
The central probe agency suspects Subramanian is the anonymous Himalayan ‘yogi’ who allegedly advised Chitra on important confidential matters of the bourse.
During 2015-16, Subramanian was group operating officer of the NSE and advisor to Ramkrishna. He joined as a chief strategic advisor in April 2013.
For the uninitiated, Ramkrishna made headlines after the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi’s) order said she was guided by a mysterious yogi, dwelling in the Himalayan ranges, in the appointment of Subramanian as the exchange’s group operating officer and advisor to the MD.
The market regulator charged Ramkrishna and others for alleged corporate governance lapses in the appointment of Subramanian as the chief strategic advisor and his re-designation as group operating officer and advisor to MD.
Sebi had slapped a fine of Rs 3 crore on Ramkrishna for allegedly exchanging confidential information over emails with this ‘yogi’.
According to Ramkrishna’s response to Sebi order, the unknown person was her “spiritual guru” who guided her for the last 20 years. She described the person as “Himalayan Yogi”, “siddha-purusha”, who did not have physical coordinates and would “manifest at will”.
