The Special Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (MPID) court has made seven entities, including certain directors of Anand Rathi Commodities, Geojit Comtrade and India Infoline Commodities, as accused in the Rs 5,600 crore-National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) payment default crisis.
The accused entities are India Infoline Commodities’ director Nirmal Jain, Anand Rathi Commodities’ directors — Preeti Gupta and Rupkishore Bhutada — and Geojit Comtrade’s directors — Shiney George and Manish Gupta, according to an order passed on Thursday.
In addition, two companies — India Infoline Finance Ltd, promoter of India Infoline Commodities Ltd, and Anand Rathi Financial Services Ltd, promoter of the Anand Rathi Commodities Ltd — have also been made as accused in the case, it added.
Separately, NSEL issued a statement saying that all the accused persons will face trial in the NSEL case. The tally of the total accused so far in the case is 220 in 11 chargesheets that has been filed by the EOW.
The present matter pertains to economic offence involving Rs 5,600 crore and several gullible investors who are still awaiting the justice.
“This court is prima facia satisfied that cognizance is required to be taken as sought for by applicants and process against accused in present applications is required to be issued under… the MPID Act… against the accused persons,” the court said in its 61-page order.
Earlier in 2018, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Mumbai in its chargesheet against the three broking entities and three directors made them accused.
It was alleged that the accused brokers, in criminal conspiracy with NSEL officials/ directors, were advertising the investment/ arbitrage opportunities by way of pair trade contracts.
“These accused brokers appears to give assurances of fixed and assured returns and deliberately avoided informing the investors about the risk factors in the trading. They assured investors that their investment were secured by stocks of commodities at NSEL warehouses and also their investments were secured by settlement guarantee fund,” the order noted.
The brokers were involved in misrepresentation and misselling of the product.
NSEL said it had prayed to court to take cognizance and issue process against the directors and promoters of the said three commodities broking entities in view of the statutory mandate of the MPID Act.
A separate application was also filed by an individual trader seeking similar reliefs whose broker was India Infoline Commodities Ltd.
In another case before the Special MPID court, the State of Maharashtra has filed an affidavit stating that India Infoline Commodities Ltd collected deposits from 1,653 traders amounting to Rs 326.22 crore in addition to having earned handsome brokerage and other charges, as per the statement.
In the same affidavit, the State of Maharashtra made an affirmative statement that the properties of India Infoline Commodities Ltd, its promoters and directors need to be secured for the interest of depositors, it added.
Last year, capital market regulator Sebi barred five brokerage houses, including India Infoline Commodities, Anand Rathi Commodities and Geojit Comtrade, for up to six months from obtaining fresh registrations as commodity brokers for their involvement in the NSEL scam.
