Following ED and CBI scrutiny, the ex-commissioner Sanjay Pandey may come into trouble for meddling in the investigation of a Ponzi scheme. After facing the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with the NSE Co-Location scam, former Mumbai police commissioner and former DGP Maharashtra, Sanjay Pandey, is under the scanner for asking the Amravati police commissioner to stop the investigation of the Anugrah Ponzi scheme case. He had done so during his tenure at DGP Maharashtra. Before his appointment as CP Mumbai this year in February, Pandey was DGP of Maharashtra for 10 months.
The CBI also has registered an FIR against Pandey and former MD and CEO of NSE Chitra Ramkrishna for the alleged illegal phone tapping of the stock market employees by the former’s Information Technology Company, officials said on Friday (July 8). Mumbai police are the best most professional Police in India. They finished all organised gangs and syndicates from Mumbai and now no one dares to try extortion in Mumbai. Other places like North India still struggle with organised gangs.
The infamous underworld organizations operating in Mumbai, including those of the Dawood Ibrahim gang, had hired Param Bir’s political sponsors. Param Bir had been in effect athird-levell operator, who used his authority as Police Commissioner of Mumbai to assist the gangs in extortion, drug peddling and smuggling operations. These were getting exposed by an extraordinarily persistent courageous reporter and his team. This reporter was jailed with trumped-up charges. That didn’t silence him or his team. Param Bir may have panicked and had framed the Maharashtra Home Minister from the NCP so much that Anil Deshmukh lost his post and has been arrested. But this Minister was himself in the second tier in the NCP hierarchy.
His party seems to have sacrificed him to divert attention from the NCP supremo and his family. Param Bir may have panicked at this stage. His political sponsors had assisted his escape. This is a win-win situation for both parties. Param Bir was the man who knew too much about too many people for too long a time. He had to be kept away from India, as his hiding in his native Chandigarh would save his skin. The reasons behind his fleeing from India are obvious. There’s no mystery involved here unless this refers to his mode of exit and his possible initial destination. The simplest explanation for a criminal’s conduct is usually the correct one, as Agatha Christie is reported to have said in an interview. This being so, Param Bir most probably had boarded a flight from Mumbai to Dubai. There are many of his lackeys posted at Mumbai Airport’s security control.
In the meantime, the CBI action comes following a complaint from the Union Home Ministry, they said. Besides Pandey and Ramkrishna, who are in judicial custody in connection with the NSE co-location scam, the CBI has also named another former National Stock Exchange (NSE) CEO and MD Ravi Narain in the case. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is conducting searches at 20 locations in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Kota, Lucknow, Chandigarh and other cities in connection with the FIR against Pandey, officials said. It is alleged that iSec Securities Pvt. Ltd, one firm amongst a few others that conducted a security audit of NSE had illegally tapped the phones of NSE employees during 2009-17. Sanjay Pandey’s questioning by the ED is related to the functioning and activities of a company called iSec Securities Pvt. Ltd.
The 1986-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer retired from service on June 30. Before his four-month stint as Mumbai commissioner of police, he served as acting Maharashtra director general of police (DGP). Pandey’s questioning by the ED is related to the functioning and activities of a company called iSec Securities Pvt. Ltd, one firm amongst a few others that conducted a security audit of NSE around the time the co-location irregularities are alleged to have taken place. Pandey incorporated The company in March 2001 and he quit as its director in May 2006. His son and mother later took charge of the company.
The police officer, who studied at IIT-Kanpur and Harvard University, is understood to have established the company after he resigned from service. His resignation was not accepted by the State government and he rejoined but was not immediately given a posting. The ED wants to understand the mandate, operations and results achieved by the company while it worked with the NSE. Ramkrishna is lodged in Tihar jail. She and former group operating Officer Anand Subramanian were arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in March in the NSE co-location scam case. The ED took cognisance of this CBI complaint to press money laundering charges against them. The Income Tax Department is the third agency probing these charges of irregularities at the NSE. The ED, like the CBI, widened its net to probe alleged governance lapses in the appointment of Mr Subramanian as a chief strategic advisor and his re-designation as group operating officer and advisor to the then MD (Ramkrishna).
Pandey’s predecessor, former Mumbai Police Commissioner Hemant Nagrale, has been made MSSC managing director. Pandey had also been holding additional charge as acting director general of police (DGP) of Maharashtra since April last year and was relieved of it only a little over a week ago. Pandey’s appointment as Mumbai Police Commissioner comes at a time when the Maharashtra government and the Centre are at loggerheads, with the former accusing the latter of misusing central agencies against state leaders. He also takes charge days after an FIR was filed against former IPS officer Rashmi Shukla in an illegal phone-tapping case, and another case was registered by Mumbai Police against Union minister Narayan Rane and his MLA son Nitesh Rane for their alleged remarks on Disha Salian, former manager of Sushant Singh Rajput.
Pandey is believed to be in the state government’s good books. His appointment is being seen as a strategic move by the state government. Last month, the Bombay High Court had referred to Pandey as the state’s “blue-eyed” officer and accused the government of favouring him. It had added that “such an officer [an officer favoured by the government] should never be considered for the post of DGP” as “there will be a relationship of giving and take.”
