Delhi court dismisses Chitra Ramkrishna's bail plea in money laundering case

A Delhi Court on Monday dismissed the bail application of former managing director and chief executive officer of the National Stock Exchange NSE Chitra Ramkrishna in a money laundering case related to the alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping of NSE employeesSpecial Judge Sunena Sharma denied the relief saying the stage was not set to allow the bailDuring the hearing the ED had opposed the bail plea saying the investigation was ongoing in the matter and she was directly or indirectly indulging in the crimeThe EDs Special Public Prosecutor N K Matta had told the court that from 2009 to 2017 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 said purpose iSEC Services Pvt Ltd was engaged for illegal interception of phone calls of employees of NSE in the guise of Periodic Study of Cyber vulnerabilities of NSEAlso readDelhi High Court seeks ED stand on bail plea by exMumbai CP Sanjay PandeyThe top officials of NSE issued agreementwork orders in the guise of Periodic Study of Cyber Vulnerabilities of NSE in favour of iSEC Services Pvt Ltd represented by former Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey and illegally intercepted the phone calls of its employees by installing an illegal machine without seeking requisite permission from the competent authority as mandated under the lawiquest the ED saidFurther no consent of the employees of NSE was taken in this matter it addedTranscripts of these calls were provided by iSEC and received by the officials of NSE at top level in breach of confidentiality and privacy of employees of NSE and thereby caused wrongful gain of Rs 454 crore to iSEC as payment for this task and corresponding wrongful loss to NSEiquest the agency saidThe court had recently refused bail to former Mumbai Police Commissioner Pandey in the caseThe ED further averred that the amount of Rs 454 crore represented the proceeds of crime in this case which were acquired by iSEC Services Pvt Ltd from NSE ofIndia and which were projected as fees for non existent Periodic Study of Cyber Vulnerabilities of NSEThe investigating officer submitted that the Enforcement Directorate had recorded statements of various persons including Ramkrishna and had collected various documents including the Monitoring Reports for Call Logs approval notes of NSE bearing approval granted by Ramkrishna for the study which prove the allegations contained in the CBI FIR based on which the ED filed the current caseIt further submitted that Ramkrishna was in possession of material evidence and information relating to the offence of money laundering which was subject matter of investigation in the instant case and custodial interrogation of Ramkrishna is necessary to establish money trail of proceeds of crime and to gather crucial evidenceThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever