Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey arrives at the office of Enforcement Directorate for questioning in connection with NSE co-location scam, in New Delhi, Tuesday, July 5, 2022. (PTI Photo) After the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has booked former Mumbai Police commissioner Sanjay Pandey in a case related to alleged tapping of phones of some National Stock Exchange (NSE) employees between 2009 and 2017.
The agency has booked the retired IPS officer under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ED has also arrested former NSE CEO, Chitra Ramkrishna, in connection with the case. A Delhi court granted Ramkrishna’s custody to ED until July 18.
The ED had questioned Pandey on July 5 in connection with the 2018 case of alleged manipulation of NSE — a separate case in which some brokers were alleged to have made windfall profits by manipulating the co-location facility of the bourse in connivance with top NSE officials.
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The present ED case is based on a CBI FIR registered recently against Pandey and his company, iSec Securities, among others, including Ramkrishna. According to ED’s submission in court, iSec illegally tapped phones of NSE employees on Ramkrishna’s directions.
Seeking Ramkrishna’s remand, ED told the court of Special Judge Sunena Sharma that payment of Rs 4.54 crore to iSec for alleged phone-tapping was decided and agreed upon between the officers of NSE, including Ramkrishna, and the company’s representatives.
The agency told the court: “The work orders/contracts/agreements were processed by Chitra Ramkrishna during her tenure as deputy managing director and managing director of NSE. During the entire period of offence — from 01.01.2009 till 13.02.2017 — Chitra Ramkrishna was holding the position of either deputy managing director (till 2010) or joint managing director (till 2013) or managing director (till December 2016) of NSE.”
The agency also said, “It is averred that after she relinquished the post of Managing Director of NSE in December 2016, the contract for so called “Periodic Study of Cyber Vulnerabilities of NSE’ expired on 13.02.2017and was never renewed subsequently, thus proving that the said illegal activity was co-terminus with her holding key position as Joint Managing Director/Managing Director of NSE.”
The agency submitted that it has collected “Monitoring Reports for Call Logs” and “Approval Notes of NSE”, bearing approval granted by Ramkrishna for the ‘periodic study’, on the pretext of which phones were allegedly tapped.
Ramkrishna’s lawyer Arshdeep Singh opposed the ED’s application for remand on the ground that the case is based on documents already in possession of the agency, and that it had earlier questioned her and had sufficient time to interrogate her on these issues.
On Friday, CBI had conducted raids at residences of Pandey and former NSE CEOs Ramkrishna and Ravi Narain, among others, in connection with the case.
Raids were conducted at 18 locations across Mumbai, Pune, Delhi-NCR, Lucknow, Kota (Rajasthan), and Chandigarh. According to CBI, a ‘red server’, some laptops and multiple desktops were seized. Sources said the agency also found voice recordings and transcripts of the allegedly tapped calls.
In its new case of alleged corruption related to the NSE co-location scam, the agency alleges that iSec Securities illegally tapped phones of NSE employees and gave the transcripts to the accused.
The CBI case is based on a complaint from the Ministry of Home Affairs.
On July 3, The Indian Express had reported that CBI is probing how iSec Securities, incorporated in 2001 by Pandey, who retired as Mumbai Police commissioner on June 30, did not red-flag that NSE’s servers were compromised.
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