Guwahati: The Income Tax department has conducted raids at the Mumbai residence of Chitra Ramkrishna, the former chief of the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) recently discovered severe lapses in her governance and ethical conduct.
While sources in the IT department acknowledged the searches, they refused to provide any additional information while the operation was ongoing.
According to a recent order from the SEBI, Ramkrishna exchanged private information about the exchange with an unnamed person, for which he was fined Rs 3 crore. Ramkrishna stated that she was following a “Himalayan yogi’s” advice.
During an internal investigation, she maintained that she was taking guidance from a ‘siddha-purusha’ or ‘paramhansa’, her spiritual guide for over 20 years, addressed as ‘rigyajursama’ in her emails.
The regulator’s decision noted, “The sharing of the NSE’s financial and business plans is an obvious, if not inconceivable, move that might shatter the stock exchange’s basic roots.”
Another severe blunder was the appointment of Anand Subramanian as a chief operating officer (COO) without the nomination and remuneration committee’s (NRC) approval, which was a violation of regulatory guidelines.
According to the SEBI order, Ramkrishna and Subramanian, as well as the unnamed ‘Guru,’ was involved in a “clear conspiracy of a money-making plan.”
In May and July 2018, the NSE filed extensive findings to SEBI, claiming that the ‘yogi’ was Subramanian himself, an allegation backed up by the forensic auditor. SEBI, on the other hand, was not convinced.
It may be mentioned that the SEBI board failed to take action against Ramkrishna, the stock exchange regulator levied a penalty of Rs 2 crore on the NSE and prevented it from launching any new products for the following six months.