Mumbai: Chitra Ramkrishna, the former MD and CEO of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) who was fined by SEBI on Friday, was guided by a faceless “yogi” for over 20 years, the market regulator’s order said.
The “yogi” also influenced the appointment of Anand Subramanian as Group Operating Officer and advisor to the MD, the order said, according to a report in The Indian Express.
SEBI on Friday penalised the NSE and its former MDs and CEOs, Ramkrishna and Ravi Narain, and others for violating securities contract rules in a case related to the appointment of Subramanian as Group Operating Officer and advisor to the MD. The regulator imposed a fine of Rs 3 crore on Ramkrishna, Rs 2 crore each on the NSE, Narain and Subramanian and Rs 6 lakh on V R Narasimhan, who was the Chief Regulatory Officer and Chief Compliance Officer.
“The unknown person according to Ramkrishna was a spiritual force that could manifest itself anywhere it wanted and did not have any physical or locational co-ordinates and largely dwelt in the Himalayan ranges,” the Sebi order said.
Subramanian was allegedly an accomplice of the “yogi” who influenced Ramkrishna’s decisions. On the yogi’s advice, Subramanian was redesignated as ‘Group Operating Officer and Advisor to MD’ and his compensation increased substantially each year, the order added.
“His cost to company was not less than Rs 5 crore. Chitra is totally dependent on Subramanian and does not do anything without his consultation,” the SEBI order said.
Ramkrishna, who quit in December 2016, also shared internal confidential information about the NSE with the ‘yogi’ by addressing her correspondence to an email id rigyajursama@outlook.com between 2014 and 2016, the order said.
