Ashok Chawla resigned as the chairman of the National Stock Exchange(NSE) in light of the recent legal developments, the bourse said in a release on Friday evening. 

The Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) on Friday informed a special CBI court that it has got sanction from the government to prosecute five people--current and former bureaucrats-- in the Aircel-Maxis case including Chawla. 

According to PTI, Ashok Jha, former economic affairs secretary, Kumar Sanjay Krishna, a former joint secretary in the finance ministry, Dipak Kumar Singh, former director in the finance ministry and Ram Sharan, former under secretary in the finance ministry are the others. Of the five, three are working with various government departments while two have retired. 

The court had granted two months time to the CBI for obtaining the sanction from authorities. CBI had on July 19 filed charge sheet against former Union minister P Chidambaram, his son Karti and 10 individuals, including public servants, and six companies as accused for alleged irregularities and criminal conspiracy in the Aircel-Maxis deal case. 

Ashok Chawla took charge as chairman of NSE in May 2016 from S B Mathur. The retired bureaucrat had handled the crisis at the exchange after Chitra Ramkrishna quit as the chief executive of the bourse. The exchange remained headless for almost six months. Prior to joining the exchange,Chawla was the head of Competition Commission of India. 

Recently, CBI had also named BSE Chairman S Ravi in an FIR in the Rs 600 crore fraud case at IDBI bank.Ravi continues as the chairman of the exchange on the grounds that only an FIR that has been filed against him. #casansaar (Source - PTI, Economic Times)