A Delhi court denied bail to former managing director and chief executive officer of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) Chitra Ramkrishna and group operating officer (GOO) Anand Subramanian in the NSE co-location case, citing Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan and the Frankenstein monster.
The court further said that the financial world, especially FIIs (Foreign Institutional Investors), is waiting for NSE to redeem itself “so that they may flock to this country for investment in droves, which is now a fantastic location for investment.”
The reference was made in an order issued and published on May 12 by Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal, a complete 42-page copy of which was posted to the court’s website on Monday.
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“It appears that accused A-1 (Ramakrishna) was running the affairs of NSE like a private club,” the judge observed. “Singer, writer, Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan once said money doesn’t talk, it swears,’ which is a song from his 1964 album ‘It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding,’ which means that money not only has influence, but it has significant influence, even a perverse effect on people.
The court said that the current swindle might influence the country’s investment climate, particularly for foreign institutional investors (FIIs), who are constantly searching for a fair, transparent, and clean stock market.
According to the ruling, the current case has rattled the financial awareness of every investor, whether retail, institutional, or otherwise, and has to be repaired to restore public trust in the same.
“About the affairs of NSE at the relevant time,” the judge said, “it would not be out of place to observe herein that there comes a time in the lifetime of an institution when it finds itself at a crossroads, then it should take a path that is a right path to restore its glory, rather than burying the skeletons, which may later turn into Frankenstein monsters.”
As a result, given the severity, importance, enormity, and extent of the charges against both accused people, as described above, there is no basis for their bail at this time, according to the court.
After hearing arguments from both the accused’s lawyer, Arshdeep Singh, and the prosecution, the court reserved its decision.
The suspects were detained in connection with the co-location fraud, for which an FIR was filed in May 2018, after discoveries regarding irregularities in the country’s primary stock market.
The CBI investigates the suspected unauthorized transmission of information from market exchange computer systems to stockbrokers.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has previously sanctioned the National Stock Exchange (NSE), its former CEOs Chitra Ramakrishna and Ravi Narayan, and two other employees for failures in senior-level recruiting.
From April 1994 until March 2013, Ravi Narain served as the NSE’s MD and CEO, while Chitra Ramkrishna served as the NSE’s MD and CEO from April 2013 to December 2016.
The CBI further claims that the NSE and its senior officials broke securities contract rules when hiring Anand Subramaniam as a global operating officer and managing director advisor.
