This was revealed in a recent order by the Securities Exchange Board of India implicating Ramkrishna and a few other senior exchange executives following a probe into the alleged violations in securities contract rules related to the appointment of Subramanian as group operating officer and adviser to the managing director then.
The order revealed that the ‘unknown person’, whom Ramkrishna in her submissions to Sebi referred to as a ‘Siddha Purusha’ or a ‘Yogi’ largely living in the Himalayas, had told her to revise Subramanian’s employment contract in an email dated February 19, 2015.
“Contract to revise to 5 day week only for paper and emoluments. 3 day will continue on routine with HO and rest at will,” said the email by the ‘unknown person’ on which both Chitra and Anand were marked as cited in the Sebi order.
“One day brought additional on contract per week Kanchan to withdraw and surrender to me per month as gratitude on gross amt.”
The Sebi order said “Kanchan” was Anand Subramanian.
According to the Sebi order dated February 11, the salary of Subramanian went up from 1.68 crore when he joined NSE in January 2013 to 4.21 crore by April 2016 just prior to his exit. In 2013, Subramanian was inducted into NSE in a consultant position. Sebi’s adjudication officer observed that there was “huge disparity in the increments given to Noticee no. 6 (Subramanian) as opposed to the other consultants that were appointed during his time.”
In the email exchange, the ‘unknown person’ also instructed Subramanian to make a payment to the unknown person as ‘gratitude’ every month, according to the Sebi order. “…from the said mail, “Kanchan” i.e. Noticee no. 6 is to withdraw and surrender to the unknown person per month as gratitude on gross amount,” Sebi cited the email.
“Hence, there appears to be a glaring conspiracy of a money making scheme that involves Noticee no. 1 (Ramkrishna) and 6 (Subramanian) with the unknown person, by which Noticee no. 1 would increase the compensation granted to Noticee no. 6 and Noticee no. 6 would then pay the unknown person from such increased compensation. This gives further credence to the allegation that there was an arbitrary and disproportionate increase in compensation granted to Noticee no. 6 by Noticee no. 1,” the Sebi order said.
The regulator said Subramanian’s salary was raised by 20% in March 2014 and within another two months he got an additional hike of 15% due to “A plus” performance review. In 2015 too, Anand received two appraisals – in March 2015, his salary was revised upwards by 15% and then in April by another 10%.
NSE’s former human resources head Chandrasekhar Mukherjee told Sebi in his depositions that the “process followed for selection of Mr. Anand Subramanian was different from the normal process,”, according to the order. In his submissions, Mukherjee revealed external head hunters weren’t roped in to explore suitable candidates for the job and also alleged that Chitra had directly handed over Subramanian’s resume to him, the order said.
“There are no notings in the personnel file of Noticee no. 6 in relation to his interview and no pre-employment documents such as educational qualification certificate, experience certificate etc. were handed over to HR of NSE or kept in the personal file of Noticee no. 6, as submitted by NRC in its report. Therefore, it is evident that Noticee no. 6 was being offered an exorbitant amount without any justification,” the order said.
