Who is this baba ‘Yogi’ whom Chitra Ramakrishna held in high respect and never took a decision without his blessings?
This character ‘Yogi’ has been, for 20 years advising the NSE’s former CEO on matters of the stock exchange, including whom to hire and whom to fire, micromanagement, travel rules for senior staff and it is evident that Chitra was a mere pawn in his major plan during the period.
Additionally, NSE’s former group operating officer, Anand Subramanian, who is Chitra’s alter ego and could be the user behind rigyajursama@outlook.com. It appears that Chitra had shared sensitive information with Anand. NSE further accepts this charge and SEBI is against it.
In the entire case, many names including senior officials at the finance ministry, and former finance ministers. Few also, looking at the emails say the suspect is not from the above possible clues.
Let us dissect it a bit deeper and look at possible outcomes.
Lets start with the man who is the core of this controversy, Anand Subramanian.
There are several clues he could be ‘Yogi’ when one understands the relationship between Chitra and Anand. The NSE staffers couldn’t agree more on this.
NSE officials pointed out that Chitra and Anand had put their blind faith in astrology and ultra-orthodox practices. Anand seemed to have a lot of influence on Chitra. He had a weird rough attitude when it came to the opinions of the senior officials and he was never once questioned for his brash behavior. Chitra also had made some changes to the administrative rules for Anand to enjoy several benefits from 5-star hotel bookings to first-class travel, which he was otherwise not entitled to.
The open secret is that Anand was the receiver of ‘Yogi’s’ perks.
All the clues fit well on the premise that he was deluding Chitra into filling his pockets and gaining power at NSE.
However, there are few indications that Anand is NOT ‘Yogi’.
Chitra stated that Anand is not ‘Yogi’, as for over 20 years her decisions were influenced by ‘Yogi’. Anand had joined NSE just 4 years ago and he lacked knowledge of capital markets.
Another clue is that while ‘Yogi’s’ mails had proper high-quality English, Anand’s mails lacked them.
The most surprising part is Chitra giving the most sensitive information in an email to Anand, which he had access to, due to his position at NSE.
Then why did she choose to mail at rigyajursama@outlook.com?
Another clue is when you look at the emails, how ‘Yogi’ is ordering Chitra, about a person named RV to report to Subramanian.
Now RV leads to Ravi Varanasi, who had held a senior post at NSE. He was the only person who could go against Anand Subramanian, anyone else who tried doing it was shown their place. Chitra and Varanasi got along well, however, Anand’s growing menace made several officials join Ravi Varanasi’s group.
Another clue is that Chitra in one of her emails is asking ‘Yogi’s’ guidance on the FII to be posted on the NSE board. Chitra says a ‘G’ has rooted for Saif Capital, the most problem causing shareholders, to be positioned as the monitoring administration. In the email, ‘Yogi’ felt “making the trouble makers as the monitor was the best way to shut them up.”
In one of the email’s ‘Yogi’ is seen asking for a percentage in Anand’s salary.
Now, what need does Anand have to give away a percentage from his salary?
Many are of the opinion that ‘Yogi’ could be from the finance ministry or could be a former finance minister.
Why the speculation?
NSE enjoyed the upper hand during the regime of UPA. The delay of MCX’s roll out to release a stock exchange. BSE’s interest in buying a lion’s share in the CAMS was put to an end by SEBI. Then NSE was given a 45% stake in CAMS. The most surprising act by NSE was to offer a collocation facility for its traders in 2009, even before SEBI prepared a document for discussion which was the usual protocol.
Soon after this facility came into operation, some brokers started looting the system (with the help of internal officials) of billions in the 2010-2015 time period.
This entire ruckus came to light when an informant alerted the authorities in an email.
Without the involvement of the Finance Ministry, NSE would never overrule SEBI and defeat its rivals.
Everything was part of a bigger picture.
NSE has defied SEBI way back in 1999 when it started a new way called the ALBM that fostered its traders to carry forward their trade. Even before SEBI had approved this NSE was operating ALBM for 9 months already.
And our ministers are well known to cover their tracks. Then why would they put themselves in an email trap, which could always be traced?
And why would top-notch people look into who is being hired at the junior level, setting up reporting hierarchies?
Lets us for once assume Chitra is telling the truth.
People say she is religious but not superstitious. Usually, famous people have spiritual guides as they are afraid to make any mistake that could make them look like a fool. Hence Chitra started taking guidance from ‘Yogi’ whom she felt had professional acumen.
In 2015, her relationship with her former mentor Ravi Narain met a dead end.
Moving on some more emails show us that ‘Yogi’ was someone who knew the In and out of NSE’s functionality, Organizational structure.
an email excerpt shows as follows :
“…she requires polishing, everyone has a godfather for his growth, for her, it is ME for a commitment given yesteryears, so she can be promoted and moved to SME as head and also be Management Representative for Business Excellence for the audit purpose reporting to RV and SS.”
SEBI had no source to prove that the brokers were logging in from the backup servers with the least load to get ahead of their competition in the markets.
SEBI’s investigators found out much later about those brokers who were using backup servers giving them an advantage over others. Before that, there were no binding rules for the use of backup servers to trade.
NSE did a big mistake in disposing of their laptops as e-waste, as the case was quite serious on the circumstances of Chitra’s and Anand’s exit from NSE.
The most pressing question is why has SEBI not yet found the real user of rigyajursama@outlook.com?
They also dismissed that there is no proof that Anand was using that Id.
However, SEBI does admit that Chitra has shared super confidential data of NSE’s business plans, Its 5-year projections, dividend pay-out ratio, board meeting agendas and appraisals of NSE’s staff.
This case is getting nationwide attention and if investigators go full guns blazing into the case, this puzzle could be easily solved.
