NSE Phone tapping: Delhi High Court grants bail to former Mumbai Police chief Sanjay Pandey in money laundering case

The Delhi High Court on Thursday granted bail to former Mumbai police chief Sanjay Pandey in a money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in relation to illegal tapping of phones of employees at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) [Sanjay Pandey v Directorate of Enforcement]. .Single-judge Justice Jasmeet Singh passed the order of bail observing that though, prima facie, offences alleged to have been committed by Pandey violate the Telegraph Act but that is not a scheduled offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Justice Singh added offences of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as well as the Information Technology (IT) and the Prevention of Corruption Act are not made out against Pandey. "Nothing has been produced before me to demonstrate that the Applicant employed any corrupt or illegal means to obtain a valuable thing or pecuniary advantage for himself. No offence under section 13(1)(d) PC Act can be alleged to have been committed as no presumption treating the receipt of monies as illegal gratification can be drawn," the court said in its order. .Pandey is facing ED and Central Bureau of Investigation (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.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 was contended. He was denied bail by a special court in August..The High Court has now said that the entire prosecution is silent on the identity of the victim who has suffered a wrongful loss. "There is nobody named in the prosecution complaint who has been deceived or cheated. Nobody has been named to whom a wrongful loss has been caused and as to what is the wrongful loss. Except for a bald averment that various customers have been cheated, the complaint is totally silent on the name of the customers, the way and manner that they have been cheated."Justice Singh added that the ED has also failed to show the nature of the information which was shared or misused, or intended to be misused, to cause any wrongful loss or wrongful gain. .Senior Advocate Akhil Sibal and advocates Aditya Wadhwa, Siddharth Sunil, Shivansh Agarwal, Pranay Mohan, Sanya Kumar and Ranbir Singh appeared for Pandey. ED was represented through Additional Solicitor General SV Raju and advocates Zoheb Hossain, Vivek Gurnani and Ankit Bhatia. .[Read Order]