The Income Tax (I-T) Department on Thursday raided the premises of former Nattional Stock Exchange (NSE) MD and CEO Chitra Ramkrishna and Group Operating Officer Anand Subramanian in Mumbai and Chennai as a part of a tax evasion investigation against them, official sources said. 

The searches were aimed at checking and gathering evidence against the two facing charges of financial irregularities and tax evasion after it was suspected that illegal financial gains could have been made by them by sharing confidential data of the exchange with possible third parties, they said. 

The premises of Ms Ramkrishna and Mr Subramanian were raided by officials of the Mumbai investigation wing of the I-T Department early morning on Thursday. 

A premise in Chennai linked to Ms Ramkrishna was also searched. The teams have taken possession of some documents from all the premises searched, they said. 

Ms Ramkrishna hit the headlines after a recent SEBI order said that she was steered by a yogi, dwelling in the Himalayan ranges, in the appointment of Mr Subramanian as the NSE’s Group Operating Officer and adviser to the MD. 

The SEBI had charged Ms Ramkrishna and others with alleged governance lapses in the appointment of Mr Subramanian as the Chief Strategic Adviser and his re-designation as Group Operating Officer and adviser to MD. 

The SEBI had levied a fine of Rs 3 crore on Ms Ramkrishna, Rs 2 crore each on the NSE, Mr Subramanian, former NSE MD and CEO Ravi Narain and Rs 6 lakh on V R Narasimhan, who was the chief regulatory officer and compliance officer. 

The SEBI order had added that Ms Ramkrishna had shared certain internal confidential information, including financial and business plans of NSE, dividend scenario and financial results, with the yogi and even consulted him over the performance appraisals of the exchange’s employees. 

Ms Ramkrishna was the MD and CEO of NSE from April 2013 to December 2016. 

The regulator had noted in its order that she had refused to reveal the identity of the unknown person and sought to claim that the unknown person was a spiritual force. 

Ms Ramkrishna and Mr Subramanian have been restrained from associating with any market infrastructure institution or any intermediary registered with the SEBI for three years, while the same for Mr Narain is two years. 

The SEBI has also directed NSE to forfeit the excess leave encashment of Rs 1.54 crore and the deferred bonus of Rs 2.83 crore of Ms Ramkrishna. 

In addition, the Sebi has barred NSE from launching any new product for six months. 

Following these revelations, the Congress party has demanded that the government bring a white paper on the functioning of the NSE. 

“The Finance Ministry and the prime minister should come out with a white paper on the state of affairs of National Stock Exchange and on the shocking activities of an ‘invisible Baba’ who was dictating terms to the former CEO of the exchange,” Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh had told reporters two days ago.