Income tax raids at Chitra Ramakrishna’s Mumbai, Chennai premises

The Income Tax Department is conducting a search at the premises of Chitra Ramakrishna, the former managing director and chief executive officer of the National Stock Exchange. The searches began in the early hours on Thursday at several premises connected to Ramakrishna in Mumbai and Chennai.

According to a source close to the development, the searches are ongoing. “The operation is based on credible information of tax evasion,” said the source. The searches are also being conducted on the group operating officer Anand Subramanian, who is alleged to have close links to Ramakrishna.

Ramakrishna hogged the limelight after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) last week said in an order that she appointed Subramanian as the exchange’s group operating officer and advisor to the MD under the influence of a Himalayan yogi. SEBI also pulled up Ramakrishna for the alleged lapses in the candidature of Subramanian, who was first appointed as chief strategic advisor and was further re-designated.

In the said order on the co-location case under investigation for several years now, the capital market regulator slapped a fine of ₹3 crore on Ramakrishna, holding her accountable for handling the affairs of the exchange at the behest of a mysterious yogi.

The co-location matter came to the fore in 2015, when a Singapore-based whistleblower raised an alarm. The whistleblower alleged that a Delhi-based member of the NSE was accessing privileged stock price information by linking to the exchange servers. It further came to the fore that some traders were being provided access to data in a preferential manner, after which the matter has been under investigation by the SEBI. In 2016, Ramakrishna resigned from the NSE citing personal reasons.