NSE phone tapping: Delhi court dismisses Chitra Ramkrishna's bail plea in money laundering case

The top officials of NSE issued agreement/work orders in the guise of Periodic Study of Cyber Vulnerabilities of NSE in favour of iSEC Services Pvt. Ltd., represented by former Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey, and illegally intercepted the phone calls of its employees by installing an illegal machine without seeking requisite permission from the competent authority as mandated under the law, the ED said.

Further, no consent of the employees of NSE was taken in this matter, it added.

Transcripts of these calls were provided by iSEC and received by the officials of NSE at top level in breach of confidentiality and privacy of employees of NSE and thereby, caused wrongful gain of Rs 4.54 crore to iSEC as payment for this task and corresponding wrongful loss to NSE, the agency said. The court had recently refused bail to former Mumbai Police Commissioner Pandey in the case.

The ED further averred that the amount of Rs 4.54 crore represented the proceeds of crime in this case which were acquired by iSEC Services Pvt. Ltd. from NSE of India and which were projected as fees for non existent 'Periodic Study of Cyber Vulnerabilities of NSE.

The investigating officer submitted that the Enforcement Directorate had recorded statements of various persons including Ramkrishna and had collected various documents including the "Monitoring Reports for Call Logs", approval notes of NSE bearing approval granted by Ramkrishna for the study which prove the allegations contained in the CBI FIR, based on which the ED filed the current case.

It further submitted that Ramkrishna was in possession of material evidence and information relating to the offence of money laundering, which was subject matter of investigation in the instant case and custodial interrogation of Ramkrishna is necessary to establish money trail of proceeds of crime and to gather crucial evidence.