Thane police book former Mumbai police chief Sanjay Pandey for extortion

THANE: The Thane Nagar police have registered an offence against former Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Pandey, following a complaint by businessman Sanjay Punamiya, who alleged that Pandey misused his position to initiate illegal investigation against him and extorted money from him and other businessmen by threatening to book them in false cases. Along with Pandey, retired ACP Sardar Patil, police inspector Manohar Patil, advocate Shekhar Jagtap, and builder Shymsundar Agrawal and two members of his family, have also been booked. Agrawal is a former business partner of the complainant, Punamiya.
Punamiya has alleged that the two other police officers – Sardar Patil and Manohar Patil – acted at the behest of builder Agrawal and two of his family members, Shubham Agrawal and Sharad Agrawal while advocate Jagtap fabricated a government document and misled courts by posing as a special public prosecutor in the cases registered against him.
The police have booked the persons named by Punamiya under sections 166 (A) (public servant disobeying law, with intent to cause injury to any person), 170 (personating a public servant), 193 (false evidence), 195 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction of an offense), 199 (false statement made in declaration which is by law receivable as evidence), 203 (giving false information respecting an offense committed), 205 (false personation for the purpose of an act or proceeding in suit or prosecution), 209 (dishonestly making false claim in Court), 352 (assault or use of criminal force otherwise than on grave provocation), 355 (assault or criminal force with intent to dishonor person, otherwise than on grave provocation), 384 (extortion), 389 (putting person in fear of offense accusation, to commit extortion, 465 (forgery), 466 (forgery of record of court or of public register, etc.), 471 (using as genuine a forged document, and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.
Incidentally, this is not the first case against Sanjay Pandey, a 1986-batch IPS officer, who retired as Mumbai police commissioner on June 30, 2022. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had taken up a money laundering case against him and arrested him after he retired from service, in connection with an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
CBI has also registered a case against Pandey and his firm, iSEC Services Pvt Ltd, for illegally tapping phones of NSE employees for about eight years. According to the central agency, “iSEC had received a payment of ₹4.45 crore for the illegal tapping, which was camouflaged as ‘periodic study of cyber vulnerabilities’ at NSE.” The firm was awarded an IT audit contract for NSE servers and systems between 2010 and 2014, but it did not flag any breach in that period.
Even Punamiya and Agrawal have filed several cases against each other. Punamiya was purportedly close to former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh. On July 26, 2022, the Marine Drive police registered an FIR against Singh, Punamiya and several others following a complaint lodged by Agrawal, alleging extortion demand of ₹20 crore by Singh and his subordinate police officers. The same day, police arrested builder Sanjay Punamiya and his associate Sunil Jain as they were named as co-accused in the case along with Singh.
In his complaint to the Marine Drive police, Agrawal had said that he had successfully done several real estate projects in Borivali, Bhayander and Gorai areas in partnership with Punamiya. But, due to several complications, conflicts and profit-sharing disputes, the two fell apart and ended their partnership in 2011, and since then Punamiya has been getting false cases registered against him in Mumbai and Thane.
In 2021, an FIR was registered against Agrawal at the Juhu police station on the complaint of Punamiya alleging that gangster Chhota Shakeel was threatening him for extortion at the behest of Agrawal, who was also booked and arrested by the Thane police in a MCOCA case.
The dispute between the two former partners led to yet another case being registered against Singh and Punamiya in 2022. In 2016, Agrawal was arrested in a case and while he was in jail, Punamiya and his associate Sunil Jain had allegedly demanded money from Agrawal’s nephew, Sharad, by claiming that Param Bir Singh was Punamiya’s friend and if the money was not paid, then they would falsely implicate Agrawal using Singh’s clout.
This meeting was held at Singh’s Thane residence in Kopari, and DCP Parag Manere, who was believed to be close to Singh, was also present in the meeting. After this meeting, ₹9 crore of extortion money was allegedly collected from Agrawal and his nephew by the accused.