The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday arrested ex-National Stock Exchange (NSE) MD Chitra Ramakrishna in a money laundering case connected with alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping of NSE employees. Special Judge Sunaina Sharma allowed four-day custodial interrogation of Ramakrishna. The ED has also booked ex-Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey and former CEO of NSE Ravi Narain along with Ramakrishna in the said case and is probing the money laundering.
Last week, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a case against M/s iSEC Services Pvt. Ltd, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi and its then officials including Santosh Pandey, then Director; Anand Narayan, then Director; Armaan Pandey, then Director; Manish Mittal, then Director; Naman Chaturvedi, then Senior Information Security Analyst & others including Sanjay Pandey, Arun Kumar Singh along with Ravi Narain, then MD; Chitra Ramakrishna, then DMD; Ravi Varanasi, then Executive Vice President; Mahesh Haldipur, then Head (Premises), all of NSE and other unknown persons.
The case was registered on a reference from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in connection with the alleged illegal interception of telephones of NSE employees carried out by its top management in collusion with said private company founded by retired IPS officer Sanjay Pandey, between 2009-2017. It was also alleged that the transcripts of these calls were provided by the said private company and received by the senior officials of NSE. An amount of approximately Rs 4.45 crore was allegedly paid to said private company for this activity, the agency has claimed.
According to the CBI, it was alleged that during 2009 to 2017 Narain, Ramakrishna, Varanasi and Haldipur and the said private company conspired to illegally intercept the telephones of NSE employees. In furtherance to this conspiracy, the said private company was allegedly engaged in the guise of conducting ‘Periodic Study of Cyber Vulnerabilities' at the NSE. It was further alleged that top officials of NSE issued Agreement/Work Orders in favour of said private company and illegally intercepted the phone calls of its employees by installing machine/s, in contravention of provisions under Indian Telegraph Act.
"No permission for this activity was taken from the Competent Authority as provided Under section 5 of the Indian Telegraph Act. No consent of the employees of NSE was also taken in this matter. Searches are being conducted on Friday at 18 premises of the accused including at Mumbai, Pune, Kota, Lucknow & Delhi/NCR etc," the CBI had claimed.
Later Pandey was enquired by the CBI and the agency had also taken into possession 25 desktops and other electronic devices from the Jogeshwari office of M/s iSEC Services Pvt. Ltd.
On July 05, Pandey had appeared before the ED in Delhi on Tuesday for enquiries in another money laundering case linked to the alleged National Stock Exchange (NSE) co-location scam.
