Ashok Chawla on Friday resigned as the Chairman of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) after the CBI got the Finance Ministry’s nod to prosecute him in the Aircel-Maxis bribery scandal.
Chawla is an accused along with former Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the CBI chargesheet. The NSE, in a statement, said Chawla had resigned with immediate effect “in light of recent legal developments.”
Conflict of interest
A few months ago, Chawla had to resign as non-executive chairman of YES Bank, citing personal reasons.
Chidambaram is accused of corruption in passing the Aircel-Maxis deal as the country’s Finance Minister. Any deal worth more than ₹600 crore has to be taken to the Cabinet for approval but the ₹3,600-crore Aircel-Maxis deal was not routed there. Chidambaram claimed that he was advised by bureaucrats to do so. Chawla had served as the Finance Secretary under Chidambaram.
Former Under-Secretary for Economic Affairs Ashok Kumar Jha and currently serving IAS officers, Joint Secretary Kumar Sanjay Krishna, Director Deepak Kumar Singh and Under-Secretary Ram Sharan, are also said to have aided Chidambaram in passing the deal and are named as accused in the CBI chargesheet filed in June 2018.