New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a fresh case against former NSE chief Chitra Ramkrishna and former Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey for “illegally tapping phones of NSE employees” between 2009 and 2017.
The eavesdropping was allegedly done by Pandey’s company iSec Securities.
On the orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the CBI searched several locations Friday, including 10 in Mumbai and Pune.
Pandey had appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Delhi on Tuesday for questioning in a money-laundering case linked to the alleged National Stock Exchange (NSE) co-location scam.
Officers quizzed Pandey on the functioning and activities of iSec Securities Pvt. Ltd, the firm which was among a few others that conducted a security audit of NSE around the time the co-location irregularities were alleged to have taken place.
The company was incorporated by Pandey in March 2001 but he quit as its director in May 2006. His son and mother subsequently took charge.
The term ‘co-location’ refers to a setup in which the broker’s computer is located in the same area as the stock exchange’s server. There have been allegations of preferential access to the trading system to a few.
Former managing director and chief executive officer of NSE Chitra Ramkrishna was arrested in the scam in early March, weeks after former group operating officer and her adviser Anand Subramanian was picked up.
In June, the CBI arrested “main accused” Sanjay Gupta, owner and promoter of Delhi-based OPG Securities Pvt. Ltd. It is alleged brokers allegedly abused the facility to profit by getting early access to the stock market.
The CBI FIR, which was ledged four years ago, said: “It was alleged that the owner and promoter of said private company abused the server architecture of NSE in conspiracy with unknown officials of NSE. It was also alleged that unknown officials of NSE, Mumbai had provided unfair access to said company using the co-location facility during the period 2010-2012 that enabled it to login first to the exchange server of Stock Exchange that helped to get the data before any other broker in the market.”
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