INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Tax searches were conducted at Chitra Ramkrishna, former National Stock Exchange head.New Delhi: Chitra Ramkrishna, the former head of the
country's largest stock exchange who allegedly shared confidential information with a Himalayan yogi and took his advice on crucial
decisions, was searched by the Income Tax department today.Chitra Ramkrishna was the managing director and CEO of the National Stock
Exchange (NSE) between 2013 and 2016 and quit citing "personal reasons".She shared information including the bourse's financial
projections, business plans and board agenda with the spiritual guru living in the Himalayas, the Securities and Exchange Board of India
(SEBI) said in an order.The market regulator called it "bizarre misconduct" and a "glaring breach" of regulations."The sharing of financial
and business plans of NSE ..
is a glaring, if not unimaginable, act that could shake the very foundations of the stock exchange," SEBI said in its order, imposing
penalties on Ms Ramkrishna, NSE and other top former executives for the lapses.The guru was running the exchange, and Ms Ramkrishna was
"merely a puppet in his hands", SEBI said.The decisions that Ms Ramkrishna took under the influence of the yogi included the appointment of
a mid-level executive without any capital market experience, as an adviser and NSE's operating officer
Ms Ramkrishna is accused of giving "frequent, arbitrary and disproportionate" increase in compensation to Anand Subramanian without any
evidence of a performance evaluation.Ms Ramkrishna is also accused of sharing internal information including financial and business plans of
the NSE, dividend scenario, financial results with the yogi and consulting him over the performance appraisals of the exchange's
employees.SEBI imposed a penalty of 30 million rupees on Ms Ramkrishna and barred her from any bourse and SEBI-registered intermediary for
three years.Ms Ramkrishna, defending herself, told SEBI that sharing of information with the person who was "spiritual in nature" did not
compromise confidentiality or integrity.She referred to the yogi as "Sironmani" and said that he guided her for the past 20 years on
personal and professional matters
She also called him 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 range".Ms Ramkrishna was among a group of executives who in the early 1990s started NSE as a
challenger to the more established BSE Ltd, then known as Bombay Stock Exchange
She was appointed joint managing director of NSE in 2009 and promoted to CEO in 2013.
