NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Monday sent to 14-day judicial custody the former managing director and chief executive officer of National Stock Exchange (NSE) Chitra Ramkrishna in connection with a 2018 case of bourse manipulation.
The court ordered that Ramakrishna be physically produced before the court next on March 28. The CBI produced the accused before court upon the expiry of her 7-day custody and urged it to remand her to judicial custody. The probe agency had arrested Ramkrishna on March 6, a day after her anticipatory bail application was dismissed by the court. The CBI had recently questioned Ramkrishna in the matter.
During the arguments for bail, the CBI counsel submitted that she has stopped cooperating and is giving evasive replies during the investigation. The counsel further added that she’s very much influential and thus her remand is necessary.
During the hearing, the court said that the probe agency had earlier sought 14-day judicial custody for Ramkrishna but now did not want to seek further custody. “Is she the mastermind of this FIR or was there a puppet master pulling the strings?” the court asked. The CBI submitted that it would be “premature to say that at this stage and they are confronting her on all aspects”. Ramakrishna’s lawyers have also informed the court that they are filing a bail application.
The court rejected Chitra’s request for home-cooked food in the custody by saying that the jail food is good enough. When Chitra’s counsel asked for other items, including a prayer book and masks, Judge again dismissed the request stating that VIP prisoners want everything then every rule should be changed. “Every prisoner is the same. She’s not a VIP,” said Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal. The arrest was made in the case related to the co-location scam, the FIR for which was registered in May 2018, amid fresh revelations about irregularities at the country’s largest stock exchange.