CBI examines two ex-Mumbai Police chiefs in Anil Deshmukh case

Last year, Mr. Singh had written to the CBI alleging that Mr. Pandey, as the then acting Maharashtra Director General of Police, had asked him to withdraw his complaint against Mr. Deshmukh

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday examined former Mumbai Police Commissioners Param Bir Singh and Sanjay Pandey in connection with the corruption case against former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh and others.

Last year, Mr. Singh had written to the CBI alleging that Mr. Pandey, as the then acting Maharashtra Director General of Police, had asked him to withdraw his complaint against Mr. Deshmukh.

The agency registered the case against the former State minister in April 2021, based on the findings of a preliminary enquiry following the Bombay High Court’s directive.

Mr. Pandey is under the scanner in another CBI case registered on July 7 against him and two former managing directors of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), Ravi Narain and Chitra Ramkrishna, for alleged illegal phone tapping of NSE employees during 2009-17. Among the accused in that case are iSec Services Private Limited, purportedly set up by Mr. Pandey in March 2001, and its functionaries. He had later resigned from the company.

“It was alleged that during 2009-17, then MD [Mr. Narain], then DMD [Ms. Ramkrishna], then executive vice-president and then head (premises) of the NSE and the private company conspired to illegally intercept the telephones of NSE employees,” said the agency, adding that iSec Services was engaged on the pretext of conducting a “periodic study of cyber vulnerabilities” at the NSE.

On May 19, the CBI had booked iSec Services along with two “high-risk” category brokers -- SMC Global Securities and Shaastra Securities Trading -- and six others for allegedly auditing the brokers during 2013-19 in violation of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) guidelines. The role of SEBI and NSE officials is also being probed in that case, which is understood to be an off-shoot of the investigation into the co-location “scam”.

According to the agency, under the SEBI and NSE guidelines, the stock brokers using the co-location facility were categorised as “high-risk” as they were into algorithmic trading. They were required to get their trading system audited every six months by auditors possessing requisite qualifications. The same auditor could perform a maximum of three successive audits of a stock broker. As alleged, iSec got the audit reports of the accused broker firms signed by other auditors to evade detection.