The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to interfere with the sanction granted for the prosecution of former National Stock Exchange (NSE) managing director and CEO Chitra Ramakrishna under the Prevention of Corruption Act in the NSE co-location case, while allowing her to raise before the trial court the question of whether she was performing a “public duty” and could be treated as a public servant.
Court Rules on Ramakrishna’s Challenge
A bench of justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran has dismissed Ramakrishna’s appeal against a Delhi High Court ruling that upheld the sanction against her. The justices stated that the question of whether Ramakrishna was performing a public duty can be addressed during the trial.
The high court had accordingly rejected her plea to quash the sanction granted by the NSE board for her prosecution under the PC Act. It also held that whether Ramakrishna was actually in charge of the NSE’s day-to-day functioning and policy decisions, including the acts or contracts referred to in the charge sheet, were matters to be established through evidence at trial. Because of its vital role in the economy and financial markets, and that Ramakrishna, by virtue of her position as its managing director and CEO, could not be completely separated from the functions discharged by the exchange, the Delhi high court in July, held that the NSE performs a public duty.
It held that the inability to frame an exhaustive definition covering every possible situation did not make the provision vague or unconstitutional. The Supreme Court’s order came in the case arising from the NSE co-location controversy, in which the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has alleged that certain brokers were given preferential access to the exchange’s servers between 2010 and 2014.
The high court had also rejected Ramakrishna’s contention that the statutory definitions of “public servant” and “public duty” were vague and violated Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
