New Delhi [India], September 24 (ANI): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday arrested former Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey in relation to National Stock Exchange (NSE) co-location and phone tapping case.

He was, earlier, arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and was presently in judicial custody in a money laundering case.

Special Judge Sunena Sharma on Saturday remanded Sanjay Pandey to CBI till September 28, 2022 and said that CBI has sufficient grounds to proceed with the investigation into the allegations contained in the FIR.

The Court also said that it has considered the submissions and perused the record. The documents collected by the Investigation officer (IO) during the course of the investigation of the present case includes the statement of various persons including some employees of M/s iSec Services Pvt Ltd which prima-facie shows that despite having resigned from the Directorship in the year 2006, the accused Sanjay Pandey was having de-facto control of the affairs of the said company as he remained present during various meetings of said company with the NSE officials and had been guiding the employees of the company in the execution of the work assigned to them.

Advocates Aditya Wadhwa and Siddharth Sunil appeared for Sanjay Pandey vehemently opposed and submitted that as he (Sanjay Pandey) is already in judicial custody in Enforcement Directorate matter, CBI can interrogate him in the judicial custody.

Lawyers further submitted that he is ready and willing to co-operate with the investigation and CBI is seeking police custody only to harass him as the entire documentary evidence has already been collected by CBI.

Sanjay Pandey was produced before the court in compliance with the production warrant issued by the court on the plea of CBI.

Appearing for CBI, Public Prosecutor stated that police custody of accused Sanjay Pandey is required to unearth the conspiracy between the officials of NSE and M/s iSec Services Pvt Ltd as NSE had given the contract for interception of calls in the garb of Periodic Study of Cyber Vulnerabilities and to examine the specific role of other employees of iSec in the illegal act of intercepting calls.

CBI further stated that he is required to examine and confront in relation to the various e-mails/documents which have been collected during the course of the investigation and also required to confront the other suspects, accused and the employees of iSec, who were involved in this illegal act.

It is further submitted by the CBI that in order to get the details of the financial benefits gained by accused Sanjay Pandey from iSec, NSE and other unknown persons for sharing of illegal intercepted data and also to recover the intercepted call records.

Sanjay Pandey also has moved a bail petition in the ED case and also has challenged the FIRs registered against him by CBI. The petitions are presently pending before by Delhi High Court for judicial consideration.

ED recently arrested Ravi Narain in connection with a money laundering case related to the alleged illegal phone-tapping of the exchange’s employees. Ravi Narain is the third person arrested by ED in the case.

Earlier, the ED had arrested Chitra Ramkrishna (also a former CEO of NSE) and former Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey on the case.

The CBI had also registered a fresh FIR in the NSE Co-Location Case over the allegations of phone tapping.

Following the orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the CBI registered a case in the alleged National Stock Exchange (NSE) co-location scam that involved the phone tapping of NSE employees.

Pandey is the 1986-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer who retired from service on June 30. During the investigation, it was found that Pandey is closely related to the functioning and activities of a company called iSec Securities Pvt Ltd, said the investigation agencies.

The company had conducted a security audit of NSE around the time the alleged co-location irregularities have taken place.

The company was incorporated by Pandey in March 2001 and he quit as its director in May 2006. His son and mother took over the charge of the company. It has been alleged that illegal phone tapping of NSE employees was done between 2009-17.(ANI)