NSE co-location case: SC rejects CBI challenge to Chitra Ramakrishna’s bail

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to set aside the Delhi High Court order granting bail to former NSE chairman Chitra Ramakrishna in the co-location scam case. The CBI — which had arrested Chitra Ramgrisha in March last year on charges of providing access to preferential market data to a stockbroker — had challenged the High Court’s September order granting her default bail.

Dismissing the appeal, a bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi said the high court’s observations would be considered limited to consideration of default bail and would not affect the merits of the case.

Ramkrishna granted bail in money laundering case linked to wiretapping last week; The Enforcement Directorate arrested the case in July last year. The ED opposed the plea on the grounds that Ramakrishna was the ‘mastermind’ behind the conspiracy.

According to the ED, the phone tapping case was part of a conspiracy and transfer between 2009 and 2017 between Ramkrishna and former NSE chief executive Ravi Narine to engage iSEC services to illegally tap employees’ phones. .
However, Delhi High Court judge Jasmeet Singh said there are ‘reasonable grounds (prima facie) to believe that the applicant is not guilty… and is unlikely to commit the crime while on bail’.

The court also observed that no complainant or victim has been identified by the ED – especially no one who has suffered wrongful loss due to cheating or cheating by the accused.

In this case, the court added, ‘there is no allegation that the applicant received or received any property or proceeds of crime’. “Furthermore, there is no allegation or evidence that … applicant concealed, possessed, used, planned or claimed the proceeds of …’

Ramakrishna spent seven months in jail in this case.

He was appointed as the Joint Managing Director of NSE in 2009 and was promoted to Managing Director and Chief Executive in 2013. His tenure at the exchange ended in December 2016.