The Delhi High Court granted bail to the former National Stock Exchange (NSE) CEO Chitra Ramkrishna in the money laundering case related to alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping on National Stock Exchange employees.
Justice Jasmeet Singh granted bail to Ramkrishna after having reserved orders in the matter on November 15.
In her bail plea, Ramkrishna had argued that she had no connection with brokers, and as per the investigation none of them had been arrested. Objecting to her bail plea, the Enforcement Directorate had earlier claimed that she was the “mastermind” behind the criminal conspiracy in the subject.
The ED had claimed that “the proposal for call interception and monitoring, which was disguised as a study of cyber vulnerability,” was processed through Ramkrishna. She was the deputy managing director at the time, and recognised the telephone numbers and workers for tracking.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and ED have alleged that illegal tapping of MTNL phones was contrary to the Telegraph Act. For this purpose, Rs 4.54 crore was paid, which becomes proceeds of crime, it was contended.
As per the ED, the case pertains to a period from 2009 to 2017 when former NSE CEO Ravi Narain, Ramkrishna, Head (Premises) Mahesh Haldipur, Executive Vice-President Ravi Varanasi, and others conspired to cheat NSE and its employees. They also engaged iSEC Services Pvt Ltd for illegal interception of phone calls of employees in the guise of doing a periodic study of cyber vulnerabilities of the NSE.
Chitra Ramkrishna, who was earlier arrested by the CBI in the alleged NSE co-location scam, was arrested in the present case by the ED on July 14 last year. She was granted bail in the CBI case by the HC in September last year.
Ramkrishna was appointed as Joint MD NSE in 2009 and remained in the position till March 31, 2013. She got elevated as MD and CEO on April 1, 2013. Her tenure at NSE ended in December 2016.
