Ex Mumbai Commissioner Sanjay Pandey was arrested by ED 

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested former Mumbai Police commissioner Sanjay Pandey on Tuesday in connection with an alleged illegal phone tapping of NSE employees, according to officials. After more than seven hours of questioning, the Indian Police Service (IPS) officer from the class of 1986 was taken into custody by the federal agency conducting the investigation. 

The ED arrested former NSE MD and CEO Chitra Ramkrishna in the case last week and recently told the court that “snooping of phone calls” at the NSE apparently started in 1997. Pandey’s company, which is under investigation, in this case, was founded in March of 2001. 

Sanjay Pandey, who attended IIT Kanpur and Harvard University, is expected to face Ramkrishna after a special PMLA court issues a custodial remand to him on Wednesday. He was previously questioned by the agency in another case booked by it to investigate an alleged co-location scam at the NSE, and at the time (July 5) Pandey was seen carrying a bag on his shoulders as he entered the agency’s office through the back gate. 

On June 30, Mumbai’s police commissioner retired after four months on the job. He was appointed by Uddhav Thackeray’s MVA government. Pandey was acting Maharashtra police chief. The retired top cop faces two ED and CBI FIRs: phone tapping and SEC guidelines violation in the NSE system audit. 

While the ED case (in the alleged phone tapping instance) is based on the CBI FIR, the ED first detected the alleged snooping of phone lines at the bourse while probing the co-location instance and informed the MHA, which asked the CBI to study ED findings and probe further.  

As the ED cannot file a criminal complaint under the PMLA, the CBI case became a scheduled offense allowing it to file a money laundering case. The retired IPS officer’s role is being investigated in connection with a company he founded that violated SEBI norms in auditing two NSE stock brokers using the scam-tainted co-location facility.  

Pandey was previously the director of iSec Securities Pvt Ltd, which he founded after leaving IPS in April 2000. However, because the government refused to accept his resignation, he was forced to rejoin the military. He resigned from the company and named his mother and son as directors.