NSE phone tapping case: CBI files charge sheet against ex-CP Sanjay Pandey, Chitra Ramakrishna

Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed its charge sheet in a designated Delhi court in the case related to alleged phone tapping and snooping of National Stock Exchange (NSE) employees. The agency has filed a charge sheet against several persons and entities, including former Mumbai Commissioner of Police Sanjay Pandey and then Managing Director of NSE Chitra Ramakrishna.

The agency has filed a chargesheet against M/s. ISEC Services Pvt Ltd, Sanjay Pandey, then Director of ISEC Naman Chaturvedi, then Senior Information Security Analyst of ISEC Jagdish Tukaram Dalvi, and officials of NSE – Ravi Varanasi, then Executive Vice President; Mahesh Haldipur, then Head (Premises); Ravi Narain, then Managing Director; Chitra Ramakrishna, then DMD/Managing Director; Anand Subramanian, then Group Operating Officer; SB Thosar, then OSD; and Bhupesh Mistry, then Manager (Premises).

The CBI had registered a case on July 7 this year against ISEC and others. During the course of investigation of another case related to the co-location scam in the NSE, an act of illegal interception of landline phones of NSE employees was unearthed.

In a statement on Friday, the agency claimed, “It was alleged that unauthorised recording and monitoring of personal call lines in NSE started in 1997 when then MD and then DMD/MD of NSE connected call lines of NSE employees to a digital voice recorder provided by a private company. From 1997 to 2009, DMD, with the help of NSE employees, allegedly supervised the interception.”

As per the statement, it’s further alleged that in 2009, the work for monitoring of calls was given to another accused private company of Delhi/Mumbai, which was started and was run by then Director of the said company. To maintain secrecy, the work order was allegedly issued to the firm in the name of “conducting periodic study of cyber vulnerabilities”. It was also alleged that in 2012, the firm purchased and installed four X PRI Quad Span Digital Voice Logger at the basement of NSE by splitting the PRI lines of MTNL.

The agency alleged, “This logger was capable of recording 120 calls simultaneously. The employees of the said private firm were given unauthorised access to the NSE premises in a manner to listen to these calls and submit weekly reports to NSE officials – then Executive Vice President and then Head (Premises). The reports, in turn, were being shown on a regular basis to then MD and then DMD/MD of NSE. The work order of said private company was renewed every year from 2009-17.”

It was found during investigation that an accused (then Director of the accused private company) working as a police officer (Sanjay Pandey) was allegedly managing the affairs of said company.

Published on: Saturday, December 24, 2022, 04:23 AM IST