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NSE phone tapping case: ED gets 9-day custody of former Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Pandey
A city court sent former Mumbai top cop Sanjay Pandey to nine days custodial interrogation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money laundering case related to the alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping of National Stock Exchange (NSE) employees
New Delhi: A city court on Wednesday sent former Mumbai top cop Sanjay Pandey to nine days custodial interrogation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money laundering case related to the alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping of National Stock Exchange (NSE) employees.
Pandey was produced before special judge Sunena Sharma after he was arrested on Tuesday. The federal agency had sought his custody for 14 days.
The ED’s case is based on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) first information report (FIR) registered in 2018 against the 1986-batch IPS officer, an audit company linked to his family, and others including NSE’s former managing director and CEO Chitra Ramkrishna.
CBI is probing how the audit company, iSec Services Pvt Ltd, did not raise any red flags that NSE’s servers were compromised. iSec was incorporated in 2001 by Pandey, and subsequently contracted by NSE.
During the hearing, additional solicitor general (ASG) SV Raju told the court that Pandey played an active role in the company, and even attended meetings at NSE from 2009 to 2017 despite his resignation from the post of director in 2006.
Raju said that the company was formed while Pandey was fighting service litigation between 2001 and 2006. He contended that MTNL landlines were tapped in connivance with top NSE officials, and the equipment for that was supplied by iSec. The ASG also said that they have to track the money trail of ₹4.54 crore, and hence Pandey’s custody was necessary.
The top cop, after taking permission from the court, submitted that the calls were recorded by NSE, and that iSec had no role in the tapping. He said that the company only got a project to monitor and analyse calls that were already recorded.
To this, the court said, “But you still have the knowledge, either directly or indirectly. They (ED) also have a reason to say that you must be a part of the conspiracy.”
Pandey said that iSec did not have the equipment to record the calls, claiming that the “machine was installed at NSE”.
However, the investigating officer contradicted this by saying that the machinery was purchased and sent by iSec.
The ED’s allegations were opposed by Pandey’s counsel, who contended that his client had been cooperative and joined the investigation on July 18. He added that CBI has already conducted searches and raids at his client’s house and seized every electronic device available, and that both agencies have the requisite documentary evidence.
He said that ever since his client resigned in 2006 from the post of director from the company, he has not drawn a single penny from it, even as he agreed that Pandey was working in a “peripheral supervisory capacity”.
The counsel also said that iSec carried out a forensic audit of the call records which were sent to them on a weekly basis, and had nothing to do with the tapping of the phone calls.
To this, the judge asked: “NSE could have recorded the calls, but why did it give the recordings to you?”
The counsel replied that the analysis was being done to spruce up the cyber protection.
“But that cannot be done by tapping phones,” the judge remarked in response before declaring his order.
