The former CEO of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), Ravi Narain, was detained by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday in connection with an alleged money laundering scheme including the illegal tapping of NSE workers’ phones.
From April 1994 to March 31, 2013, Narain served as the MD and CEO of NSE. From April 1, 2013, to June 1, 2017, he served on the board of the company as vice-chairman in a non-executive category.
The CBI detained former NSE CEO Chitra Ramkrishna on March 6 in connection with a co-location scam case that was originally filed in May 2018. On July 14, the ED detained her in relation to the phone tapping case.
The Central Bureau of Investigation recently filed a FIR against Pandey, iSec Securities, and Ramkrishna, among others, on which the current ED case is based. The ED had claimed that the payment of Rs 4.54 crore to iSec Securities for “periodic study of cyber vulnerabilities” constituted phone tapping in order to get Ramkrishna’s remand.
This is the second incident of brokers manipulating the NSE co-location service. The first ED case is predicated on a CBI FIR, which claims that several stock brokers unlawfully obtained preferential access to the NSE server through its co-location facility during Ramkrishna’s stint as CEO, resulting in significant financial advantages for them.
