NSE phone tapping case: Court sends Chitra Ramkrishna to judicial custody

New Delhi [India], July 22 (ANI): A Delhi court on Friday sent Chitra Ramkrishna to judicial custody till August 5, 2022. Ramkrishna, a former MD and CEO of the National Stock Exchange, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the money laundering act for alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping of employees of the stock exchange.
She was produced before the court on Friday after ending of remand period granted earlier.
Special Judge Sunaina Sharma on Friday sent Chitra to Judicial Custody after taking note of the ED application which did not seek further custody.
Special Public Prosecutor Naveen Kumar Matta appeared for the Enforcement Directorate in the matter.
The same court on Wednesday sent Sanjay Pandey, former Mumbai Police Commissioner to eight days' ED remand in the National Stock Exchange (NSE) co-location scam case.
ED earlier submitted that Chitra Ramkrishna is necessary to establish a money trail of proceeds of crime and to gather crucial evidence. ED alleged that she was directly or indirectly indulging in or knowingly assisted in and was actually involved in all processes or activity connected with the proceeds of crime including its concealment, possession, acquisition or use and further in projecting or claiming it as untainted property.
ED lawyer had also submitted that custodial interrogation of Chitra Ramkrishna is essential to further determine her own role as well as that of various other persons who facilitated the offence of money laundering and to determine the entire modus operandi employed for the generation of proceeds of crime and projection thereof as licit payment for 'Periodic Study of Cyber Vulnerabilities' of NSE.
ED lawyer further submitted that custodial interrogation of Chitra Ramkrishna is essential to establish a money trail of Proceed of Crime as well as projection thereof as she may be required to be confronted with the other suspects named in the impugned FIR. She is also required to be confronted with various documents collected during the course of the investigation.
ED further submitted that custodial interrogation of Chitra Ramkrishna is necessary to ascertain her complicity with other key players involved in laundering the proceeds of crime, her relationship and modus operandi adopted with such other persons.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) recently registered a fresh FIR in the NSE Co-Location Case over allegations of phone tapping
Following the orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) last week registered a fresh case in the alleged National Stock Exchange (NSE) co-location scam that involves phone tapping of NSE employees.
The fresh FIR mentioed the names of former NSE Chief Chitra Ramakrishna, Ravi Narain and former Mumbai Commissioner Sanjay Pandey for allegedly tapping phones of NSE officials and other irregularities.
Pandey is a 1986-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer who retired from service on June 30.
During the investigation, it has been found that Pandey is closely related to the functioning and activities of a company called iSec Securities Pvt Ltd. The company had conducted a security audit of NSE around the time the alleged co-location irregularities have taken place. The company was incorporated by Pandey in March 2001 and he quit as its director in May 2006. His son and mother took over the charge of the company.
It has been alleged that illegal phone tapping of NSE employees was done between 2009-17. (ANI)