Phones tapped at NSE since 1997, ED tells Delhi court

The ED, through its lawyer advocate N K Matta, urged for a five-day remand of the accused, arguing that new facts that have surfaced in its investigation shows phone-tapping was going on at the NSE since 1997. “Ramkrishna was confronted with three persons and their statements have also been recorded. The interrogation has revealed that phone-tapping/snooping of phone calls of NSE employees was going (on) since 1997,” Matta told the court.

The ED submitted that documentary evidence related to this period was collected, and Ramkrishna has to be confronted with this.

The ED investigating officer told the court that Ramkrishna is required to be further interrogated, and that the agency needs to “confront her with some more persons involved or suspected to be involved in the present offence”. The agency said it also needs “to confront her with some newly collected evidence of phone tapping to determine her role as well as the role of other persons who facilitated the offence of money laundering”.

Appearing for Ramkrishna, lawyer Rony Oommen John opposed the remand application and said, “The grounds raised in the remand are vague. One person did not join the investigation. My client cannot be kept in custody. They expanded the scope of investigation suddenly.”

The ED has booked Ramkrishna and former Mumbai Police commissioner Sanjay Pandey in a case related to alleged tapping of phones of some NSE employees between 2009 and 2017.

The present ED case is based on an FIR the CBI registered recently against Pandey and his company iSec Securities, among others, including Ramkrishna.

In its new case of alleged corruption related to the NSE co-location scam, the agency alleges that iSec Securities illegally tapped phones of some NSE employees and gave the transcripts to the accused. According to ED’s case, Pandey’s company allegedly tapped phones of NSE employees purportedly on Ramkrishna’s directions.

The ED has alleged that payment of Rs 4.54 crore to iSec for the illegal phone tapping was decided and agreed upon between the officers of NSE, including Ramkrishna, and representatives of iSec.

The CBI is already probing Ramkrishna in the 2018 NSE co-location case, in which some brokers, purportedly in connivance with some officials of NSE, allegedly got quicker access to the bourses when they opened, helping them book huge profits.