The former Mumbai police chief, Sanjay Pandey was denied bail in a money laundering

Case: Sanjay Pandey v. ED

Sanjay Pandey, the former Mumbai police chief, was denied bail on Thursday in a money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which alleged that he was involved in illegally tapping the phones of employees at the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

Tanveer Ahmed Mir, appearing for Sanjay Pandey, argued that Pandey was a whistleblower at the NSE and he provided services to bring to light "IPL betting, system operation breaches, excess control breaches, etc." Hence, offences under the Indian Telegraph Act and the Information Technology Act were not made out. The amount of Rs 4.74 crore cited by the ED as proceeds of crime was not the result of multi-layered transactions or routing through different sources.

He further argued that call recording was a regular practice among public companies, including banks. 

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju and Special Public Prosecutor N K Matta, representing the ED, opposed the bail plea stating that Pandey was an influential person. Further, the case also involved criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust. Raju argued that the NSE does not permit call recording and that there is an element of consent whenever a company decides to record calls.

BACKGROUND

ED and CBI have filed FIRs against Pandey, alleging illegal tapping of NSE employees' phones by iSec Services Private Ltd, a company he founded, and violation of SEBI guidelines in conducting NSE's system audit.

Illegal tapping of MTNL phones was contrary to the Telegraph Act. It has been argued that Rs 4.54 crore was paid for this purpose, which is considered the proceeds of crime.

HELD

Special judge Sunena Sharma dismissed the bail plea filed by Pandey.