Delhi court rejects bail plea of Chitra Ramakrishna, Anand Subramanian in NSE co-location case

The agency had told the court that Ramakrishna, by the “gross abuse of her official position”, illegally and arbitrarily appointed Anand Subramanian, “who did not have any prior experience”.

According to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), several key decisions taken by Ramkrishna during her tenure as NSE’s MD and CEO from 2013 to 2016, including Subramanian’s appointment, were guided by an unidentified yogi “who may be largely dwelling in the Himalayan Ranges”. Ramkrishna is alleged to have shared confidential information about the bourse with the “Himalayan Yogi”.

The 2018 case pertains to charges of preferential access to the trading system to some brokers through the co-location facility where brokers can buy “rack space” for their servers at NSE, early login and “dark fibre”, which can allow a trader split-second faster access to the data feed of the exchange. Even a split-second edge is considered capable of bringing huge gains to a trader.

The CBI booked Sanjay Gupta, the owner and promoter of Delhi-based OPG Securities Pvt Ltd, and others in the case. According to the CBI, Gupta abused the NSE server architecture between 2010 and 2014, in a criminal conspiracy with unknown officials of the exchange, and even bribed Sebi officials.