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ED arrests former Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Pandey in NSE phone tapping case
The Enforcement Directorate arrested former Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Pandey in its money laundering probe pertaining to illegal tapping of phone lines of National Stock Exchange employees by a firm founded by him
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday arrested former Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Pandey in its money laundering probe pertaining to illegal tapping of phone lines of National Stock Exchange (NSE) employees by a firm founded by him, people familiar with the development said.
Pandey, who retired from service on June 30, was named as main accused in the unauthorized phone tapping of NSE employees between 2009 and 2017, allegedly carried out at the behest of former NSE managing director Chitra Ramkrishna.
Pandey’s family firm iSEC Services, which he quit as director in 2006 but his son and wife took over, was paid ₹4.5 crore for the tapping, which was camouflaged as periodic study of cyber vulnerabilities at the NSE, it is alleged.
Pandey was questioned on Monday and Tuesday in the matter, an official said, declining to be named. After seven hours of interrogation on Tuesday, he was placed under arrest on the charges of Prevention of Money Laundering Act based on documentary evidence and recorded statements by various persons.
“The money, ₹4.5 crore, that was paid to him by the NSE for illegal interception, is being treated as proceeds of crime,” the officer said.
The 1986 batch Indian Police Service officer headed Mumbai police for four months before his retirement, besides serving as acting director general of police of Maharashtra between April 2021 to March 2022.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had registered a case against him, Ramkrishna and another former NSE managing director, Ravi Narain, earlier this month for allegedly putting under surveillance almost all the employees of the bourse for eight years without their permission, in violation of the Indian Telegraph Act.
Since the ED cannot launch probes on its own without predicate offence, relying on the CBI’s first information report (FIR), it registered a money laundering probe in the tapping and arrested Ramkrishna last week.
Both the agencies are investigating the NSE co-location scam since 2018-19, in which the facility of the exchange was compromised by giving preferential access to several stockbrokers by Ramkrishna and other top brass.
The ED discovered secret phone surveillance while probing the co-location irregularities, following which it reported the matter to the Union home ministry, which in turn asked the CBI to probe the charges, HT reported last week.
Based on interrogation of three persons, whom it did not name, the central agency claimed in a Delhi court on Monday that the illegal tapping of NSE employees was being done since 1997 and documentary evidence regarding the same has been recovered and is being analysed.
