NSE Scam: PC Act Case against Chitra Ramkrishna To Proceed after Delhi HC Rejects Challenge to Definitions of Public Duty, Public Servant

Prashant Jha (Bar and Bench) 09 July 2026

Investor Interest

The Delhi High Court on Thursday rejected the plea filed by Chitra Ramkrishna, the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), challenging the definitions of ‘public duty’ and ‘public servant’ under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PC Act).

A Division Bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja ruled that the NSE performs a public duty and Ramkrishna, being its Managing Director (MD) and CEO, cannot be wholly separated from the functions performed by the NSE in which the public at large is interested.

The Court also rejected Ramkrishna's submission that the PC Act sanction granted for Ramkrishna's prosecution was invalid.

"We have rejected your submission on the sanction order. We do not find any merit in the present petition. The same, along with applications, is accordingly dismissed," the Court said.

Ramkrishna had challenged Sections 2(b) and 2(c)(viii) of the PC Act.

Section 2(b) defines public duty as the “duty in the discharge of which the State, the public or the community at large has an interest."

Section 2(c)(viii) says that a public servant includes any person “who holds an office by virtue of which he is authorised or required to perform any public duty.”

Ramkrishna is an accused in the alleged NSE co-location scam case. She has been accused of frequently revising the designation and compensation of former NSE employee, Anand Subramanian.

The case against Ramkrishna stems from a February 11 order of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) which found that Ramakrishna had allegedly been involved in financial misdeeds relating to fixation and frequent revision of compensation of another former NSE employee, Anand Subramanian in a disproportionate manner.

She is alleged to have done this in cahoots with someone whom she claimed to be a “Siddha Purusha."

The CBI said that Subramanian, while performing a public duty to protect the interest of common investors, indulged in criminal conspiracy with other co-accused and caused a huge advantage to various trading members/brokers. Thus, she committed a serious economic offence, the CBI alleged.

The other allegation against Ramkrishna was that she was in touch through e-mails with a Himalayan Yogi who the CBI later claimed to be none other than Subramanian.

The Colo case dates to 2015 when Moneylife first published a letter by a whistle-blower going by the name Ken Fong in June 2015. The whistle-blower alleged that NSE officials were selectively allowing a few brokers to reap massive profits through preferential access to its colo servers in the form of early log-in or access to servers with low trading loads.

The NSE Colo scam has been documented by Moneylife editors Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu in their book Absolute Power: Inside Story of the National Stock Exchange’s Amazing Success, Leading to Hubris, Regulatory Capture and Algo Scam, released in June 2021.

Courtesy: Bar & Bench

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