The CBI has knocked the doors of the Delhi High Court, seeking cancellation of bail granted to former CEO of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) Chitra Ramkrishna in the illegal telephone tapping case.

The CBI, said sources aware of developments, is of the view that the Rouse Avenue Special Court went only into the money laundering charges and did not appreciate other serious offences made out against her in the telephone tapping case; and hence the decision to seek cancellation of Ramkrishna’s bail.

Special CBI judge at the Rouse Avenue Court, Sunena Sharma, gave bail to Ramkrishna on December 21, 2022, on the grounds that Delhi High Court had already given bail to co-accused Sanjay Pandey, a retired Mumbai police commissioner, in the same case that the ED was investigating “which, in the light of Section 45 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), embodies far more stringent conditions for grant of bail”.

On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court Judge Jasmeet Singh issued notices to Ramkrishna on the CBI plea.

CBI chargesheet

Last February, the CBI had filed charge-sheet against Ramkrishna and six other former top officials of the NSE, including Ravi Varanasi, and Anand Subramanian, and three ex-employees of ISEC Services Pvt Ltd, including retired Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Pandey. The CBI alleged that the NSE engaged ISEC Services Pvt Ltd under the garb of conducting “periodic study of cyber vulnerabilities”, but started unauthorised recording and monitoring of phone lines of exchange employees from 1997 when Ravi Narain and Chitra Ramkrishna were at the helm of affairs. The company was paid about ₹4.54 crore for the interception from January 1, 2009, to February 13, 2017.

According to the CBI FIR registered on July 7, 2022, Ramkrishna along with 12 others were booked for criminal conspiracy under 120B, criminal breach of trust under 409, cheating under 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The agency also slapped Sections 69B (power to authorise monitoring and collection of data), 72 (penalty for breach of confidentiality) and 72A (punishment for disclosure of information in breach of lawful contract) of Information Technology Act, 2000.

And prosecution was also sought under Section 20 (establishing, maintaining or working unauthorised telegraph), 21 (using unauthorised telegraph), 24 (unlawfully attempting to learn contents of messages), 26 (unlawfully intercepting or divulging content) of the Indian Telegraph Act, and section 3 (Prohibition of possession of wireless telegraphy apparatus without license) and 6 of the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933, and 12(2) (punishment for abetment of offence) read with 13(1)(d) (misappropriation of property intrusted as public servant) of Prevention of Corruption Act.

Ramkrishna is on bail in the other case of rigging of co-location facility at the NSE, too.

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