Delhi High Court on Thursday granted bail to former NSE CEO Chitra Ramkrishna in the money laundering case related to alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping on National Stock Exchange (NSE) employees.
"The application is allowed. The applicant is granted bail," said Justice Jasmeet Singh.
The former NSE managing director, who was earlier arrested by the CBI in the alleged NSE co-location scam, was arrested in the present case by the Enforcement Directorate on July 14 last year. She was granted bail in the CBI case by the high court in September last year.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had opposed her bail plea in the present case on grounds that she was the mastermind behind the conspiracy.
The phone tapping case, according to the ED, pertains to a period from 2009 to 2017 when former NSE CEO Ravi Narain, Ramkrishna, Executive Vice-President Ravi Varanasi, and Head (Premises) Mahesh Haldipur and others conspired to cheat NSE and its employees and for the purpose, engaged iSEC Services Pvt Ltd for illegal interception of phone calls of employees of the NSE in the guise of doing periodic study of cyber vulnerabilities of the NSE.
Seeking bail, Ramkrishna had argued that no scheduled offence was made out against her and the allegations also did not fall within the rigours of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
Ramkrishna was appointed as Joint MD NSE in 2009 and remained in the position till March 31, 2013. She got elevated as MD and CEO on April 1, 2013. Her tenure at NSE ended in December 2016.
Meanwhile, the capital market regulator in its order on April 30, 2019, had directed NSE to disgorge Rs 624.89 crore at 12 per cent interest per annum from April 2014 onwards. However, NSE will still have to bear the brunt of paying Rs 100 crore to SEBI’s Investor Protection Fund on account of its failure to conduct due diligence, according to the SAT order.