NSE Co-Location: Trial Court grants bail to Chitra Ramkrishna in CBI case
Dec 22, 2022
New Delhi [India], December 22 : The Rouse Avenue Court has granted bail to Chitra Ramkrishna former CEO and MD of National Stock Exchange (NSE) related to the alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping of NSE employees.
The Special Judge Sunena Sharma in an order passed on December 21, 2022 said that, considering the fact that the High Court has already granted bail to the co-accused Sanjay Pandey in the connected ED matter, which in the light of Section 45 PMLA embodies far more
stringent conditions for grant of bail, I find no reason to decline bail to the applicant in the present case.
Court in its order noted that as per the allegations, the applicant was directly connected with the illegal recording of telephone calls of NSE employees because the approvals for giving contract of Periodic Study of Cyber Vulnerabilities under the guise of which illegal tapping of phone calls of NSE Employees was done, was processed/granted by the applicant/ accused in her capacity as Deputy Managing Director/Joint Managing Director/Managing Director of NSE during the period of offence between 2009-2017.
However, in the light of the aforementioned observation made by the High Court regarding lack of essential ingredient of the predicate offences, this court is inclined to grant bail to the accused /applicant in the instant case. Mere fact that CBI was not a party to bail application of the co-accused moved before the High Court in said ED matter, cannot be a ground to urge before this court to take a different view with regard to alleged predicate offences. Undoubtedly, the observations contained in the aforementioned order are reflective of only the prima facie view taken by the High Court but, this court also at this stage is required to only take a prima facie view of the matter for consideration of bail application of the accused.
Furthermore, the reply filed by the CBI in the quashing petition pending before the High Court was also taken into account by the High Court before passing the aforementioned order, noted the trial court.
Senior Counsel Rebecca John appeared for Chitra during arguements submitted that though the bail application moved by the accused/applicant in ED matter is still pending before the Delhi High Court but the co-accused Sanjay Pandey has already been enlarged on bail by the Delhi High Court vide order dated 08.12.2022.
It was also argued that in the light of the observations made by the High Court in said bail order passed on the bail application of co-accused Sanjay Pandey, the present applicant/accused Chitra Ramkrishna also deserves to be granted bail in the instant case.
Counsel submitted that as per said order, the essential ingredients of predicate offences of the instant FIR i.e. the offence punishable under Section 120B r/w Section 409/420 B IPC are totally lacking for making any premise for the alleged offence of money laundering in said ECIR. It was further submitted that all other offences of the instant FIR i.e. the offences under Section. 69 B, 72A of the IT Act, Sections 20,21,24,26 of the Indian Telegraph Act and Sec 3&6 of Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act are bailable.
As per instant FIR, top officials of NSE including the applicant herein conspired with M/s iSec to cheat the NSE and its employees and in furtherance of this criminal conspiracy iSec was hired
for illegal interception of the phone calls of NSE employees. For said purpose, iSec was issued agreement/work orders in the guise of Periodic Study of Cyber Vulnerabilities of NSE and same was done in contravention of the provisions of Telegraph Act as no permission was taken from competent authority as required under Section 5 of the Telegraph Act.
Transcripts of these calls were provided by M/s iSec and received by the officials of NSE at the top level, which resulted in breach of confidentiality and privacy of the employees of NSE and caused wrongful gain of Rs. 4.54 crores to iSec as payment for this task and corresponding wrongful loss to NSE.
In the National Stock Exchange Co-Location case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said that the investigation states that accused Chitra Ramakrishna, by misusing her official position, re-designated the post of accused Anand Subramanian as Group Operating Officer and Advisor to MD from April 1, 2015, without bringing the same to the notice of NRC and the board.
The CBI is probing the alleged improper dissemination of information from the computer servers of the market exchanges to the stockbrokers. Earlier, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) penalized the National Stock Exchange and its former CEOs Chitra Ramakrishna and Ravi Narayan and two other officials for lapses in recruitment at the senior level.
