ED arrests ex-NSE chief Chitra Ramakrishna in PMLA case linked to 'illegal phone tapping'

Former NSE CEO and MD Chitra Ramkrishna

The Enforcement Directorate on July 14 arrested Chitra Ramakrishna, the former managing director and chief executive officer of the National Stock Exchange of India, in connection to a money laundering case linked to alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping, news agency PTI reported.

The agency took Ramakrishna under arrest after receiving nod from from a Delhi-based court to investigate the case, the report added.

Following the arrest, Ramakrishna was sent to four-day custodial interrogation by the court, news agency ANI reported.

The ED, earlier today, booked Ramakrishna, along with another former NSE chief Ravi Narain and ex-Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The action comes a week after they were booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly tapping phones of NSE employees between 2009 and 2017.

The CBI had alleged that Narain and Ramkrishna had roped in a company founded by the now retired Mumbai police commissioner Pandey to snoop on the stock market employees by illegally intercepting their phones calls, the PTI report said.

The CBI, and now the ED, have named Pandey, his Delhi-based company, NSE's former MD and CEOs Narain and Ramkrishna, executive vice president Ravi Varanasi and head (premises) Mahesh Haldipur, among others, in their respective complaints, it added.

The alleged irregularities of secret surveillance were found by the ED, following which it reported it to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The MHA subsequently asked the CBI to probe the charges, officials told the news agency.

Ramakrishna's arrest also comes around a month after the 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. NSE’s Chief Business Development Officer Ravi Varanasi has been fined Rs 5 crore, while Ramakrishna has been handed a penalty of Rs 5 crore.

(With PTI inputs)