By James Paul | India |
This gotta be the bizarrest case in the history of the top Indian financial regulatory NSE. The former head of National Stock Exchange Chitra Ramakrishna took guidance from allegedly a fictitious guru to perform her job better. The imaginary monk even took a paycheck which grew 9 fold from INR 15Lpa to a whopping 1.38 crore!
A forensic audit by Ernst & Young (E&Y) on the Colo scam revealed as early as in 2015, that Chitra was sharing internal confidential information about NSE’s organisational structure, financial results and policies and seeking guidance on internal issues with an outsider whose email ID was rigyajursama@outlook.com. The username is a combination of the names of the three vedas).
The fictitious guru, Chitra claims is from the Himalaya and doesn’t have a physical coordinate, despite being allocated the aforementioned email id!
She sought advice from the yogi during her tenure from 2013 till 2016! The Yogi was supposedly on a payroll with 3 days a week working. The yogi had been interacting with Chitra even on operational issues regarding senior NSE employees.
Anand Narayan, who specialises in securities laws and works as an in-house counsel at a major private firm, told ThePrint that “SEBI’s order against NSE and its senior officials shows massive misgovernance issues in one of India’s leading stock exchanges”.
The string of emails and financial transactions are quite revelatory. An email from the so-called guru that exposes how Chitra acted as a mere puppet says, “Don’t worry the straw knows when to be a capillary and when NOT to. Kanchan is the straw and I will be the suction force for this and you will vomit all that is required as always.” Kanchan, referred to in the email is Anand Subramanian (Subbu) and the issue under discussion is how to lobby the government to permit self-listing by the NSE.
Although EY’s investigation suggests the imaginary monk to be Anand Subramniyam the COO of NSE, SEBI however remains unconvinced. This also is a telltale of how slack the SEBI has been around the whole debacle.
Read the full story, ‘The Bizarre Story Of The Imaginary Monk Who Duped The NSE CEO, Drew A Salary Of 1.38 Crore And More’ (Mashable India, 17 Feb 2022), here.
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The Billionaires and The Guru: How a Family Burned Through $2 Billion (Asia Samachar, 18 Aug 2018)
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