By Malini Bhupta
Chitra Ramakrishna, the former CEO & MD of the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE), has stepped down from the board of Reliance BP Mobility. The resignation came into effect from February 19, eight days after a damning order of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). Ramakrishna, who has since been in the news for serious governance failures at the exchange, held only one directorship after stepping down from the exchange in 2016. She had resigned from all other boards — eight others — following the investigation launched into the co-location scam.
She was appointed an independent director on the board of Reliance BP Mobility, part of Reliance Industries, in September 2020. Sebi in its order concluded that there were financial “misdeeds” by the former CEO as she could neither justify the appointment of Anand Subramanian, NSE’s former group chief operating officer, nor the substantial increases in his remuneration.
Following the Sebi order on February 11, FE has learnt that she had to resign from the company as an independent director. In response to a mail, a spokesperson of RIL said, “Ms Chitra Ramakrishna has tendered her resignation as a director on the Board of BP Mobility Limited on 19-02-2022, with immediate effect.” It is interesting that despite the massive scandal surrounding her and the Himalayan Yogi, she waited till February 19 to resign from the directorship at Reliance BP Mobility.
Ramkrishna has been in the eye of a storm, which has all the makings of a Bollywood potboiler, after details of her exchange with an “unknown person” became public. The markets regulator for the last five years has been investigating allegations of governance violations at the country’s largest stock exchange between 2013 and 2017 with reference to the appointment and compensation of Anand Subramanian, who was neither qualified to become strategic advisor nor group operating officer at NSE.
