Former National Stock Exchange (NSE) CEO and Managing Director, Chitra Ramkrishna, has been questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Tihar Jail, where she has been lodged for nearly three months, ever since the CBI arrested her in the co-location scam.
The ED, who grilled her on five questions, found her to be evasive, said agency sources. Ramkrishna was questioned on the controversial appointment of Anand Subramanian as Group Operating Officer with a hefty salary package, despite not having the requisite qualifications and ignoring the NSE board’s objections, said ED sources.
The former CEO was also posed a query on how and why co-location facilities were rigged, giving preferential trading treatment to some brokers and companies.
The ED registered a money laundering case against Ramkrishna and Subramanian after the CBI expanded the scope of its 2018 FIR to probe their roles, on the basis of a SEBI inquiry against the two. The agency has also filed a chargesheet against two former senior officials of the NSE, and is in the process of filing a supplementary chargesheet. To gather more evidence, the CBI recently carried out searches at 10 places associated with brokers and traders, who are suspected to have benefited from the NSE co-location scam.
In the first chargesheet, the CBI has accused Ramkrishna of abusing her official powers to appoint Subramanian as the GOO at a salary of ₹4.21 crore per year. She also re-designated him in violation of NSE recruitment rules, the CBI has charged. The duo have been refused bail by the special CBI court of Rouse Avenue Courts. Ramkrishna's bail plea is pending before the Delhi High Court.
Besides the CBI, ED and SEBI, she is also under the glare of the Income Tax department.