A special court has granted seven-day custody of former National Stock Exchange CEO Chitra Ramkrishna to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the NSE co-location scandal case after the agency told the court that it is probing the alleged role of more officials of the bourse as Ramkrishna has sought to shift the blame to lower functionaries at the exchange during her interrogation so far.
She was arrested by CBI after three days of interrogation and produced before the special court on Monday which alleged the CBI to interrogate her in custody for 7 days.
The court also extended by two days custodial interrogation of Anand Subramanian, Ramkrishna’s former advisor and NSE’s group operating officer, who was already in CBI custody.
“It appears that the custodial interrogation of the above accused would be required to find out the detailed modus operandi adopted by her in conspiracy with the other co-accused involved in the present case, including co-accused Anand Subramanian. The present case may be of unimaginable magnitude,” said the Judge.
The CBI told the court that in four rounds of interrogation so far, Ramkrishna has avoided giving any direct replies to the questions posed and has tried to mislead the agency.
The agency submitted that it needs to confront Ramkrishna with more than 2,500 emails exchanged between her and Subramanian. It also said that Ramkrishna needs to be confronted with officials of NSE, Securities and Exchange Board of India and co-accused in the manipulation of stock market case. Ramkrishna’s custodial interrogation is imperative to unearth the larger criminal conspiracy and the alleged involvement of more NSE officials and brokers, CBI said.
Besides, Ramkrishna also needs to be confronted with Subramanian to understand the magnitude and scope of the conspiracy, said the CBI counsel.
