News Analysis India

Tag: CBI

  • NSE co-location scam: Court extends Anand Subramanian’s remand in CBI custody till March 9

    By Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: The Special Court, CBI Cases, at New Delhi extended the custodial remand of former group operating officer (GOO) of the National Stock Exchange Anand Subramanian till March 9 on the request of the CBI on Monday.

    The duration of Subramanian’s first custodial remand expired on Sunday after which he was produced before the concerned court with a request to extend his custodial remand further in connection with the multi-crore scam related to the National Stick Exchange as co-accused.

    ALSO READ: Were ex-CEO of NSE Chitra Ramkrishna and Anand Subramanian planning to turn neighbours?

    He was arrested by the CBI from a location in Chennai on February 24 midnight after being questioned by the agency officials for a couple of days. He was sent to CBI custody till March 6. Now, he will continue under CBI remand till March 9 on the order of the Special Court, CBI cases. SEBI has also slapped a fine of Rs 3 crore on him.

    As per available information, Subramanian was appointed as the Chief Strategic Advisor of the NSE and continued in this post from 2013 to 2015. Thereafter, he was promoted to the post of Group Operating Officer and advisor to the then chief executive officer Chitra Ramakrishna and continued till 2016.

  • CBI to produce former NSE CEO Chitra Ramakrishna in local Special court

    Express News Service

    The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will produce former chief executive of  National Stock Exchange Chitra Ramakrishna in the local Special court of CBI cases seeking custodial remand of her in connection with the multi crores market manipulation-cum-irregularities case of NSE, lodged against her and others with the agency.

    She was finally taken into custody by the CBI after questioning her for last a couple of days during which her replies were found unsatisfactory.

    CBI sources on Monday morning said that she would be taken on custodial remand with the permission of the concerned court. Earlier, the CBI Spl court had rejected the plea for anticipatory bail and expressed displeasure over the lackadaisical attitude of the agency working on the case.

    Prior to her arrest, Anand Subramanian-The former Group Operating Officer and the closest to Chitra Ramakrishna was arrested in connection with the ongoing investigation into the NSE colocation matter.

    ALSO READ| Revealed: The Chennai house that Chitra Ramkrishna sold to Anand Subramanian’s wife in 2021!

    CBI sources also said that the days of Anand Subramanian ended on Sunday, so the CBI will also produce him in the Special court seeking the second remand of Anand Subramanian on Monday apart from producing Chitra Ramakrishna.

    ALSO READ: Were ex-CEO of NSE Chitra Ramkrishna and Anand Subramanian planning to turn neighbours?

    Both are accused of complicity in committing grave irregularities in the market manipulation and trading as well as passing confidential information to outsiders including one who continued in communication with Chitra Ramakrishna with a pseudo-identity called”Himalayan Yogi”.

  • CBI unwilling to probe if Sheena is alive in order to cover up its shoddy investigation: Indrani to court

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: Indrani Mukerjea, accused of killing her daughter Sheena Bora, has said the CBI was reluctant to probe her “Sheena is alive” claim to cover up their own “shoddy investigation” in the case.

    Indrani had recently submitted an eight-page application before the special CBI court claiming that Bora is alive and had urged it to direct the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe her claim.

    Last, week the CBI had submitted a written response, which said her claim was a “figment of her imagination” and that it was “next to impossible” Bora was alive.

    The CBI had further said Mukerjea’s application had no merit and that it had been filed with malafide intention to delay the hearing of the trial.

    On Thursday, Mukerjea, through her lawyer Sana Khan, filed a rejoinder to CBI’s reply.

    The details were made available on Saturday.

    “The CBI’s reply is devoid of merits, malafide and shrouded with misleading and false submissions, assumptions and presumptions with a clear intent to suppress the truth,” she said in her rejoinder, adding that the agency’s reluctance to examine Asha Korke was nothing but a clear indication of “malafide intent” to cover their “shoddy” investigation in this case.

    Mukerjea has claimed Asha Korke, a former police inspector lodged in Byculla women’s prison in an extortion case, had told her that in June, 2021 she had met a woman in Srinagar who looked like Sheena Bora.

    Her rejoinder further said the CBI had conducted the investigation in the case in the most “unprofessional” and “shockingly shoddy manner”, causing grief to the applicant (Indrani) who is completely innocent.

    “The evidence that has come on record in the court has concretely established several false and palpably wrong information and evidence has been presented to make a false case against the applicant (Indrani),” it said.

    She claimed CBI had misled the court and was still making attempts to cause prejudice against her.

    Indrani Mukerjea was arrested in 2015 along with her then husband Peter Mukerjea and her former husband Sanjeev Khanna in connection with the killing of her daughter Sheena Bora.

  • ‘Figment of her imagination’: CBI refutes Indrani Mukerjea’s claim that daughter Sheena Bora is alive

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: The CBI has said that Indrani Mukerjea’s plea claiming that her daughter Sheena Bora, whom she is accused of killing, is alive, is a “figment of her imagination” and “next to impossible”.

    Mukerjea had recently submitted an eight-page application before the special CBI court, claiming that Bora is alive.

    In the application submitted through her lawyer Sana Raees Khan, Mukerjea had sought that the CBI and prosecution be directed to file an affidavit in response.

    Mukerjea claimed that Asha Korke, a former police inspector lodged in Byculla women’s prison in an extortion case, has allegedly told her that in June, 2021 she had met a woman who looked like Sheena Bora in Srinagar.

    The probe agency, in its response last week, stated after conducting a thorough investigation it had filed a chargesheet and two supplementary chargesheets against Mukerjea, Sanjeev Khanna, Shyamvar Rai and Peter Mukerjea under various sections of the IPC including murder.

    “Her application has no merit, the same has been filed with malafide intention to delay the hearing of the trial,” the CBI said.

    It further stated that there was ample oral, documentary, medical and scientific evidence on record proving the complicity of the accused.

    The central probe agency said the accused has the prime role in committing the murder of her own daughter by strangling her and setting the body ablaze.

    All evidence – oral, documentary and scientific – clearly establishes that Indrani Mukerjea is the prime accused, who hatched the conspiracy to murder Bora and executed the same with the help of co-accused, it said.

    There is no substance in her plea.

    It is a cooked up story either by the accused or by the so-called Asha Korke, the probe agency said.

    Since Bora had been strangled to death, it is impossible that she is alive and living somewhere in Kashmir and she spoke to Korke, it said.

    It is nothing but a figment of imagination of Mukerjea or Korke, it said, adding that the application is “far-fetched”.

    It cannot be believed as the investigation has concluded.

    Despite having every inch of evidence pointing out the same, the accused has the audacity to make the wildest of claims, the CBI stated in its affidavit.

    Indrani Mukerjea was arrested in 2015 along with her then husband Peter Mukerjea and her former husband Sanjeev Khanna in connection with the killing of her daughter Sheena Bora.

  • CBI questions ex-NSE GOO Anand Subramanian over abuse of co-location facility by broker

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The CBI has questioned former National Stock Exchange group operating officer Anand Subramanian in connection with its ongoing probe into alleged irregularities by a stock broker, the ambit of which was expanded after a recent SEBI report cited “governance lapses” at the exchange, officials said on Monday.

    The CBI questioned Subramanian during the last three days in Chennai about his role at the exchange, how he landed as the group operating officer at the NSE, besides his association with then MD and CEO Chitra Ramkrishna, they said.

    A team of CBI officials also visited the SEBI office in Mumbai recently to collect certain documents, they added.

    The CBI had last week questioned former NSE CEOs Ramkrishna and Ravi Narain in connection with “fresh facts” which surfaced in the damning report released by SEBI on February 11.

    The market regulator said Ramkrishna was steered by a yogi dwelling in the Himalayan ranges in the appointment of Subramanian as the exchange’s group operating officer and adviser to the managing director (MD).

    The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) charged Ramkrishna and others with alleged governance lapses in the appointment of Subramanian as the chief strategic advisor and his re-designation as group operating officer and adviser to the MD.

    SEBI has levied a fine of Rs 3 crore on Ramkrishna, Rs 2 crore each on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), Subramanian, and former NSE MD and CEO Ravi Narain, and Rs 6 lakh on V R Narasimhan, who was the chief regulatory officer and compliance officer.

    The central probe agency had booked stock broker Sanjay Gupta, owner and promoter of Delhi-based OPG Securities Pvt Ltd, in 2018 for allegedly making gains by getting early access to the stock market, the officials said.

    The agency was also probing unidentified officials of SEBI and the NSE, and other unknown persons.

    “It was alleged that the owner and promoter of said private company abused the server architecture of NSE in conspiracy with unknown officials of NSE. It was also alleged that unknown officials of NSE, Mumbai had provided unfair access to said company using the co-location facility during the period 2010-2012 that enabled it to login first to the exchange server of the stock exchange that helped to get the data before any other broker in the market,” the CBI has alleged in the FIR.

    Narain was the MD and CEO of the exchange from April 1994 till March 2013. Thereafter, he was appointed as vice-chairman in the non-executive category on the NSE’s board from April 2013 and remained so till June 2017.

  • Fodder scam case: CBI court sentences RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav to five years in prison

    By PTI

    RANCHI: A special CBI court on Monday sentenced RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav to five years in prison and slapped a fine of Rs 60 lakh on him in connection with the Rs 139 crore Doranda treasury embezzlement case of the fodder scam.

    The court pronounced the sentence after virtually hearing arguments on the quantum of sentence.

    After his conviction in the case on February 15, the ailing 73-year old former Bihar chief minister was lodged in the Birsa Munda Central Jail and then shifted to state-run Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi.

  • Himalayan baba may allegedly be former finance minister Subramaniam, claims source

    Express News Service

    The CBI and tax authorities have swooped down on former MD & CEO of the National Stock Exchange Chitra Ramkrishna. But they have not been able to find the identity of the so-called Himalayan Baba who ran India’s biggest stock exchange from behind the scenes.

    Highly placed sources told TNIE, that this person is no baba and has nothing to do with the Himalayas, and is most likely from the other end of the country. They say he is a former bureaucrat from the Union finance ministry who was in charge of the capital market and is credited with shaping the career of Ramkrishna and helping her reach the top at NSE.

    Strongly rejecting the possibility of NSE’s Chief Strategy Advisor Anand Subramaniam being the Baba, sources said there were some people, who wanted the issue to be closed by making Subramaniam – as the person who was communicating with Ramkrishna using the email id [email protected]. 

    If Subramaniam is established as the Baba, then the serious charge of leaking sensitive information to an outsider would go away. This theory of Subramaniam being the Baba is also being pushed by the NSE board.

    SEBI, however, has rejected this theory after a detailed investigation into the matter. SEBI investigation has also established that the NSE board had full knowledge of Ramkrishna sharing sensitive NSE information with an unknown person who used the email id [email protected].

    Yet, the board allowed her to resign and leave and took no action against her. In fact, the board thanked her for her services. Sources said members of the board are also likely to be probed as investigation widens in the case.

    According to sources, the name of this bureaucrat who used the identity of a baba would come out if the CBI dives deep into the case. “But if the case is investigated like the co-location scam where NSE was allowed to get away with a fine, then the baba will remain a mystery,” sources said.

    They said that NSE’s theory that Subramaniam used the fake id in order to communicate with Ramkrishna and seek favours from her is deliberately misleading. “The person using [email protected] id is known intricate details of NSE’s functioning and hierarchy. Subramanian was a novice. He came from outside. The authoritative tone of the messages from that mail id is a clear giveaway about the seniority and knowledge of the user,” sources said. They said Subramaniam could never have told Ramkrishna, “You will vomit all that is required as always.” This is a communication from a tutor to a pupil. Not from a junior to his senior, they said.

    In a mail, the unknown baba tells Ramkrishna “don’t worry, the straw known when to be a capillary and when not to. Kanchan (Subramaniam) will be the straw and I will be the suction force for this and you will vomit all that is required as always.” Here, the unknown person is telling Ramkrishna to repeat his lines in discussions with SEBI, PMO and finance ministry on the listing of stock exchanges.

    During the course of investigation in the co-location case, SEBI came across certain documentary evidence, which demonstrate that the MD & CEO of NSE had shared certain internal confidential information of NSE viz Organizational Structure, Dividend Scenario, Financial Results, Human Resources Policy and related Issues, Response to Regulator etc with an unknown person by addressing her correspondence to an email id [email protected] during the period 2014 to 2016.

    SEBI investigator Ananta Barua concluded, “I find the allegation that Noticee no. 6 (Subramaniam) has exploited Noticee no. 1 (Ramkrishna) by creating another identity before her in the form of the unknown person having email id [email protected] to guide her perform her duties according to his wish, is not sustainable.”

    SEBI said it was unfortunate that the head of the leading and largest stock exchange in India has had to resort to such attempts to justify her actions of sharing confidential information pertaining to NSE with an unknown person. 

    “I find that it is a bizarre attempt at concealing the identity of the unknown person. Clearly, such an attempt is unacceptable. I note that the Noticee no. 1 (Ramkrishna) herself has stated that – “Who else and whom he would correspond with was outside my purview. He may have corresponded with any others too”, and therefore, Noticee no. 1 has no assurance herself that the confidential information she has passed on to the unknown person is not being passed on to other persons. Therefore, I find that it is a glaring breach of the regulations and laws in place that requires key officials and employees to maintain confidential information of the company, which in this case being NSE, which is the leading and largest stock exchange in India,” the SEBI order said.

  • CBI files reply to Indrani’s application which claimed Sheena Bora was alive

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: The CBI on Friday filed its reply to Indrani Mukerjea’s plea that claimed her daughter Sheena Bora, whom she is accused of killing, was alive.

    The details of the probe agency’s response, which was filed before special CBI judge A S Sayyad, however, were not known as yet.

    Last month, Mukerjea had, in an 8-page application, sought the court to direct the CBI, the prosecution, to file an affidavit in response to her claims.

    She had also sought to know if the Central Bureau of Investigation had taken any steps to ascertain her claims that Sheena Bora was alive.

    As per the application, in November last year, a woman introduced herself as Asha Korke, a former police inspector who was arrested in an extortion case also involving former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh, inside the Byculla women’s prison.

    Korke allegedly told Mukerjea that in June, 2021 she was in Srinagar where she met a woman who looked like Sheena Bora.

    When Korke approached the woman and asked if she was Sheena Bora, the woman replied in the affirmative, the application said.

    Indrani Mukerjea was arrested in 2015 along with her then husband Peter Mukerjea and her former husband Sanjeev Khanna in connection with the killing of her daughter Sheena Bora.

  • Fodder scam: CBI court convicts Lalu in Rs 139 crore Doranda treasury case

    By PTI

    RANCHI: A special CBI court on Tuesday convicted Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad in the Rs 139.5 crore Doranda treasury embezzlement case.

    The quantum of punishment will be pronounced on February 18, a CBI counsel said.

    The court had on January 29 completed hearing arguments in the case and reserved its verdict.

    Prasad had earlier been sentenced to 14 years in jail in four other fodder scam cases.

    “Lalu Prasad has been convicted. The quantum of punishment will be pronounced on February 18,” the CBI counsel said.

  • Loans to ABG Shipyard turned NPAs prior to 2014: Finance Minister

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the ABG Shipyard account turned NPA during the erstwhile UPA regime and the banks took lesser than normal time to detect the fraud perpetrated by the shipping firm.

    “In this particular case with that kind of a measurement, actually, I should say to the credit to the banks, they’ve taken lesser than what is normally an average time to detect these kinds of frauds,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at a press conference after addressing the members of the RBI board.

    The minister said normally banks take 52-56 months of time to detect such cases and initiate follow-up actions.

    The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) recently booked ABG Shipyard Limited, its former chairman and managing director Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal and others for allegedly cheating a consortium of two dozen lenders led by ICICI Bank.

    ABG Shipyard fraud is much higher than the one perpetrated by Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, who allegedly cheated the Punjab National Bank (PNB) of around Rs 14,000 crore through issuance of fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoUs).

    Sitharaman also said that during the NDA regime, health of banks has improved and they are in position to raise funds from the market.

    Addressing the press conference, the RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das asserted that RBI’s inflation projections are quite robust. He further said the momentum of inflation, from October 2021 onwards, is on a downward slope.

    “It’s primarily the statistical reasons the base effect which is leading to higher inflation especially in third quarter, and the same base effect will play in different ways in the coming months,” Das said.