[BREAKING] Delhi court denies bail to former Mumbai Police chief Sanjay Pandey

A Delhi court on Thursday rejected the bail plea of former Mumbai police chief Sanjay Pandey, arrested in a money laundering case registered by the Enforcement at Directorate (ED) wherein it alleged that he was involved in illegal tapping of phones of employees at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) [Sanjay Pandey v. ED].Special judge Sunena Sharma dismissed the bail plea. A detailed order is likely to follow.Advocate Tanveer Ahmed Mir, appearing for Pandey, had contended that Pandey was in fact a whistleblower at the NSE and he carrying out services to bring to fore “IPL betting, system operation breach, excess control breach” etc.Mir had submitted the offences under the Information Technology Act and the Indian Telegraph Act were not made out. He had also said that amount of ₹4.74 crore cited by ED as proceeds of crime was not a result of multi-layered transactions or routing through different sources..He had also argued that call recording was a regular practice among public companies, including banks, citing Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) circular to this effect.The ED, represented by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju and Special Public Prosecutor N K Matta, had opposed the bail plea saying Pandey was an influential person.The ASG had also argued that offences dealing with criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy were made out in the case..Contesting the argument of call recording being permitted by the NSE, Raju outlined that there was an element of consent whenever a company decides to record calls.“Recording happening by companies where it is said ‘call is being recorded for training and quality purposes’,” he illustrated.Pandey is facing ED and CBI FIRs alleging illegal tapping of phones of NSE employees by iSec Services Private Ltd, a company he founded, and violation of SEBI guidelines in conducting NSE’s system audit.The Court had on Tuesday remanded him to judicial custody till August 16.It is alleged that illegal tapping of MTNL phones was contrary to the Telegraph Act. For this purpose, ₹4.54 crore was paid which becomes proceeds of crime, it has been contended..Was whistleblower at NSE; phone tapping of employees not criminal offence: Former Mumbai police chief Sanjay Pandey to Delhi court