The scandal involving former NSE officials and others is now coming to light after the co-location scandal erupted. The CBI has arrested former Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey and former MD and CEO of NSE Figure Ramakrishna An FIR has been lodged against him in connection with illegal phone tapping of stock market employees. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken up the matter after receiving a complaint from the Union Home Ministry.
Apart from Pandey and Ramakrishna, the CBI has also named Ravi Narayan, another former NSE CEO and MD, in the case. Narayan is currently in judicial custody in connection with the NSE co-location scam. CBI officials have said that raids are being carried out at 20 places in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Kota, Lucknow, Chandigarh and other cities in connection with the FIR registered against Pandey.
According to the CBI, one of the companies auditing NSE’s securities was Isaac Securities, which illegally tapped the phones of NSE employees between 2009-17. The audit was conducted by the company at the time of the co-location scam. The investigation into the co-location case was initiated by SEBI in 2015 when a whistleblower alleged that some brokers were obtaining co-location service-early login and access through Dark Fiber.
Pandey founded iSec Securities in March 2001 and resigned as its director in May 2006. The company was then taken over by his son and mother. Pandey, who studied at IIT-Kanpur and Harvard University, is believed to have started after resigning from the service. However, his resignation was not accepted by the state government and he rejoined the service. Yet they were not immediately posted anywhere. He was later made Mumbai Police Commissioner during the government of former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.