The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked former top brass of the National Stock Exchange, led by Chitra Ramkrishna and Ravi Narain, as well as erstwhile Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Pandey over the alleged illegal tapping of phone calls between 2009 and 2017 used by the bourse’s employees.
The case was registered after a complaint from the home ministry, sources told ET. Also, it is probing whether personal mobile phones were intercepted. As per the premier investigative agency, NSE hired iSec Services Pvt, a firm floated by Pandey, for conducting a “periodic study of cyber vulnerabilities” at the bourse under a Rs 4.45 crore contract.
Further, the CBI has filed a new criminal case against Ramkrishna, Narain, Pandey, and others, and named them as accused, and the accused will soon be quizzed in the matter. At present, Ramkrishna is in judicial custody in the NSE co-location scam.
“No permission for this activity was taken from the competent authority as provided under Section 5 of the Indian TelegraphAct. No consent of the employees of NSE was taken in this matter,” the publication mentioned, citing the CBI statement.
A senior official familiar with the matter said transcripts of the telephonic conversations were sent to Ramkrishna and Narain. “Tapping only stopped in 2019, once the colocation scam broke out,” the person added.
Worth mentioning here is that the home ministry gives permission to a few law enforcement agencies to carry out surveillance of private individuals and process has to be followed.
“Pandey, though he had briefly quit the service, was well aware of the illegality. However, the firm linked to him and his family members intercepted the phones between 2009 and 2017,” the daily quoted the official as saying.
On Friday, following the fresh revelations, the CBI carried out search operations, covering 18 locations, including the residences of Pandey, Ramakrishna, and Narain in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi-NCR, Lucknow, Kota, and Chandigarh.
More importantly, the federal agency is believed to have recovered a “server, along with two laptops” used for the surveillance from iSec’s offices. Also, proof that NSE damaged the surveillance system and discarded it as e-waste in 2019 has also been recovered.
In December 2016, Ramakrishna quit as chief executive officer of the NSE, while Narain stepped down as chairman and board member in June 2017.
