NSE phone tapping case: Delhi court dismisses ex-Mumbai police Chief Sanjay Pandey bail plea

The Rouse Avenue Court on Thursday dismissed the bail plea of former Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey who was recently arrested by the Enforcement Directorate ED in the NSE phone tapping and snooping caseSpecial Judge Sunena Sharma on Thursday dismissed the bail plea of Sanjay Pandey Pandey is presently in judicial custody in the caseHowever in the instant case considering the broad probability based on the material placed before the court the involvement of the accused in the offence of money laundering as defined by the Apex Court cannot be ruled outFurthermore the applicant was the top cop of Mumbai police till 30062022 hence apprehension of Investigating agencyProsecution that the applicant may influence the witnesses or tamper with the evidence is not unfoundedIn his bail plea Sanjay Pandey stated that he had investigated and prosecuted several highprofile and politically sensitive cases and the instant proceedings are a political fallout of honest and sincere discharge of his duties as a senior police officerThe instant case is clearly motivated by political considerations and it is also evident from the fact that an offence that allegedly occurred between 2009 and 2017 is being investigated in 2022 ie thirteen years after its purported commencement and five years after its purported closure and that too within a week of the Applicant demitting his office stated Sanjay Pandeys bail petitionAdvocate Aditya Wadhwa with Advocate Siddharth Sunil represented Sanjay Pandey and submitted that the huge delay in the registration of the said FIR raises serious doubts as to the bonafide of the investigation It appears that the applicant Sanjay Pandey is arraigned in the present case for no fault of his own and only to fulfil some political vendettaFor ED Additional Solicitor General ASG SV Raju and Special Public Prosecutor Naveen Kumar Matta had appeared and submitted that he Sanjay Pandey resigned in April 2000 and there was litigation between 20012006 his service VRS moved in 2007 and in October 2008 and he withdrew thatHe formed a company incorporated in 2001 when this was incorporated he was still in service even if he was not the director of the company he attended the meeting We have records defacto he was in control ED further submitted that the contract came in as facade 120B is a predicate offensecriminal conspiracy held MTNL lines were tapped This company was a family concern and 454 crores were proceeds of crimeThe agencys move comes after it reportedly found enough evidence in the NSE colocation scam in which it wanted to know the role of an audit company incorporated in 2001 by the retired Mumbai Police chief for raising a red flag that the NSE servers were compromised The compromise had allowed one of the trading companies to get unfair access to the system resulting in windfall profitsThe case is already being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation CBI since 2018It is alleged that the firm incorporated by Pandey was one of the IT companies tasked with conducting security audits at NSE during 2010 to 2015 when the colocation scam is believed to have taken placeThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever