‘Spiritual guru’ ran India’s top bourse as puppet master, regulator says

Chitra Ramkrishna, the ex-chief of the National Stock Exchange, shared information including the bourse’s financial projections and business plans with a purported spiritual guru

India’s Securities and Exchange Board of India said NSE and its board were aware of the exchange of confidential information, but had chosen to ‘keep the matter under wraps’

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Chitra Ramkrishna, former head of India’s National Stock Exchange. File photo: Reuters

Published: 8:00pm, 13 Feb 2022

The former head of India’s largest stock exchange shared confidential information with a yogi and sought his advice on crucial decisions, a probe by the market regulator has found, ahead of the bourse’s much-awaited public listing.

In a case of “bizarre misconduct” that was a “glaring breach” of regulations, Chitra Ramkrishna, the former chief executive of National Stock Exchange (NSE), shared information including the bourse’s financial projections, business plans and board agenda with a purported spiritual guru in the Himalayas, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said.

“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 an order, imposing penalties on Ramkrishna, the bourse and other top former executives for the lapses.

The NSE building in Mumbai. Allegations of corporate governance lapses have dogged NSE for several years. File photo: Reuters

Ramkrishna, who quit NSE in 2016 citing “personal reasons”, was not immediately reachable for comment. NSE and SEBI did not respond to requests for comment.

Allegations of corporate governance lapses have dogged NSE for several years. The exchange had planned to go public in 2017 but its listing was derailed by allegations officials had provided some high frequency traders unfair access through co-location servers, which could speed up algorithmic trading.

After a three-year investigation, SEBI fined the exchange over US$90 million and barred it from raising money on securities markets for six months. NSE challenged the order in court and has sought SEBI’s approval to file for a new IPO.

However, during that investigation, SEBI found documents showing Ramkrishna’s emails to an unknown person, who she said during questioning was a “spiritual force” she had sought guidance from for 20 years.