Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey was sent to 9-day ED custody by a Delhi court on Wednesday. illegal phone tapping
The Enforcement Directorate had registered a case against Sanjay Pandey, former NSE chief Ravi Narayan and Chitra Ramakrishna for their alleged involvement in spying on certain persons working with the NSE and initiated investigation.
ED charges against Sanjay Pandey
The Enforcement Directorate, which had sought 14-day custody of the former top Mumbai cop, told the court that Sanjay Pandey had resigned from the service in April 2000. Then there was a lawsuit between 2001-2006 regarding his service. Later, he transferred to VRS (Voluntary Retirement Service) in 2007, which he withdrew in October 2008.
The ED informed that court that Sanjay Pandey formed a company- Isec Securities Private Limited and incorporated it in 2001. The ED alleged that Sanjay Pandey was in service when the firm was incorporated, even though he was not a director of the company.
Read also | Who is former Mumbai top cop Sanjay Pandey arrested by ED for phone tapping
The ED also alleged that he had attended the office meeting and was indirectly controlling the operations of the company. The agency argued that the contract came in the form of a mask. The ED argued before the court that the settlement of the firm backed by Sanjay Pandey with NSE was a criminal settlement and the MTNL lines were tapped. The agency alleged that the proceeds of crime in this case amounted to Rs 4.54 crore.
ED’s counsel also alleged that NSE was indulging in illegal activities and Sanjay Pandey was involved in activities that were promoting those activities. The prosecution counsel also told the court, “The ED argues that you can tap internally, if it is a private line but there is no way, one can tap the MTNL line.”
This is political vendetta, claims Sanjay Pandey’s defense
Sanjay Pandey, through his lawyer, told the court that he was an able public servant till June 30. Till then he was handling the law and order situation of Mumbai as a Police Commissioner. Suddenly two FIRs have been registered against him in just seven days after his retirement. And now he has been arrested. His arrest apparent “political vendetta”, Sanja Pandey
Responding to the ED’s allegations, Sanjay Pandey told the court that the calls were being recorded for surveillance and analysis purposes. All the machines were provided by NSE. He did not find any illegal machine or found any machine and was not part of any nexus.
Sanjay Pandey also told the judge that the ISEC project with NSE was called Analysis of Recorded Calls. Sanjay Pandey argued that his firm was not tapping any live surveillance and there was no equipment to tap any calls. He alleged that every recording was done by NSE and the machines used for this purpose were installed at NSE and it was he who tapped the calls.
What is the matter?
According to the FIR, former NSE chiefs Chitra Ramakrishna and Ravi Narayan worked in a private firm for illegally spying on NSE employees. CBI and ED suspect that both wanted to find out whether the employees were discussing or leaking information related to the exchange.
It is alleged that Sanjay Pandey-backed company Isec Services got around Rs 4.45 crore as contract amount. The alleged snooping took place from 2009 to 2017, coincidentally the same period as the co-location scandal. The snooping machine was later disposed of as e-waste by NSE.
Earlier, the CBI had searched 18 premises of the accused in Mumbai, Pune, Kota, Lucknow and Delhi-NCR, including the residence of Sanjay Pandey. Sources said that Pandey was also questioned by the CBI in this case.
In the case of illegal espionage, the CBI, during its investigation, recovered payment receipts, voice samples of recordings, original tapes of recordings and servers as well as two laptops from the premises of Isec Services Pvt Ltd, to a company backed by Sanjay Pandey Were. Ltd., a firm linked to Sanjay Pandey, has evidence of phone tapping on four MTNL lines, each line involving 30 calls at a time.
The probe agency had registered a case against New Delhi-based ISEC Services Pvt Ltd, its then officers and directors, including Santosh Pandey, Anand Narayan, Armaan Pandey, Manish Mittal, Naman Chaturvedi (then Senior Information Security Analyst). Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey, along with former NSE chiefs Ravi Narayan, Chitra Ramakrishna, Ravi Varanasi (then Executive Vice President), Mahesh Haldipur (erstwhile Head Complex) and other unidentified people.
The case was registered following a reference to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) regarding alleged illegal interception of telephones of NSE employees in connivance with the accused private company from 2009-2017.
It was alleged that from 2009 to 2017 the accused and a private company conspired to illegally intercept the telephones of NSE employees. In furtherance of this conspiracy, the private company was allegedly engaged in the guise of conducting ‘periodic study of cyber vulnerabilities’ at NSE. It was further alleged that top officials of NSE issued agreements (work orders) in favor of the private company and illegally intercepted the phone calls of its employees by installing the machines in contravention of the provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act.
Read also | NSE espionage case: Nothing to do with Sanjay Pandey or his transactions, says journalist under CBI probe
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