NSE phone tapping: Delhi HC reserves order on bail plea by Chitra Ramkrishna in ED case

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on the bail plea by Chitra Ramkrishna in the money laundering case related to alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping on National Stock Exchange NSE employeesThe former NSE managing director objected to the Enforcement Directorates claim that she was the mastermind behind the conspiracy and highlighted that she has spent four months in custodyArguments heard Judgement reserved said Justice Jasmeet Singh after hearing rejoinder submissions by the senior counsel for RamkrishnaSenior advocate Rebecca John appearing for Ramkrishna argued that the EDs claim that she was the mastermind can be discredited and disproved on the basis of the material on recordTo say that I processed the tapping and I was the mastermind is being economical with the truth and contrary to the documents that they ED have themselves filed on record she arguedAlso read Submit documents on dispute by November 23 EC to Sena factionsThe senior lawyer said that the court would consider the facts and circumstances of the case to grant bail in light of a provision of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act which permits the grant of bail to certain classes of accused including womenI have been in custody in this case since July 14 Four months in this case and a complaint has been filed John saidShe had earlier argued that no scheduled offence was made out against Ramkrishna and the allegations also did not fall within the rigours of the PMLAThe phone tapping case according to the ED pertains to a period from 2009 to 2017 when former NSE CEO Ravi Narain Ramkrishna Executive VicePresident Ravi Varanasi and Head Premises Mahesh Haldipur and others conspired to cheat NSE and its employeesFor this purpose they allegedly engaged iSEC Services Pvt Ltd for illegal interception of phone calls of employees of NSE in the guise of doing a periodic study of the cyber vulnerabilities of NSEEarlier theED had argued that Ramkrishna was the mastermind behind the criminal conspiracy in the matter and opposed her bail pleaThe agency had claimed that the proposal for call interception and monitoring which was in the guise of study of cyber vulnerability was processed through Ramkrishna who was the deputy MD at the relevant time and that she identified the telephone numbers and the employees for monitoringChitra Ramkrishna who was earlier arrested by the CBI in the alleged NSE colocation scam was arrested by ED on July 14 The court was earlier told that the payment of over Rs 4 crore made by NSE to iSEC for the illegal actions from January 2009 till February 2017 are proceeds of crime and the acts of the accused were in violation of the law including the Telegraph ActRamkrishna was appointed as Joint MD NSE in 2009 and remained in the position till March 31 2013 She got elevated to MD and CEO on April 1 2013 Her tenure at NSE ended in December 2016Earlier this year the trial court had refused to grant bail to Ramkrishna in the matterIt had said that the accused not only infringed the privacy and confidentiality of NSE employees but also committed a criminal breach of trust in respect of NSEs fund and property over which she had dominionThis 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