The Mumbai police, on Monday, filed its first supplementary chargesheet against Jignesh Shah, former director of National Spot Exchange Ltd., (NSEL) in the Rs.5,600-crore payment scam.
The 9,370-page chargesheet was filed in the special Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors’ Court. The chargesheet entails the statements of 270 witenesses in the case.
Criminal conspiracyOn September 30, an investor had filed an FIR against the directors and key functionaries of NSEL for cheating, forgery, criminal breach of trust and conspiracy. The FIR alleged that the accused hatched a criminal conspiracy to defraud the investors, and misrepresented that they were investors and induced them to trade on the platform of NSEL by creating forged documents such as bogus warehouse receipts, thereby, defrauding the clients.
Mr. Shah has been charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including those for cheating, forgery, criminal misappropriation and criminal conspiracy along with certain sections of the MPID Act.
“Mr. Shah was arrested on May 5, and on Tuesday, we will exhaust the 30-day period available under the Code of Criminal Procedure ( CrPC) to file a chargesheet against him,” Additional Commissioner of Police, Mr. Rajvardhan Sinha, Economic Offences Wing ( EOW), told the press here on Monday.
In May, while arresting Mr. Shah, the police had claimed that he had masterminded the entire scam and was involved in a criminal conspiracy with the other co-accused to turn NSEL into a non-banking institution.
So far, 11 persons have been arrested in the case.
According to the police, Mr. Shah, FTIL head and NSEL director, as well as member of its audit committee, approved all the borrowers from NSEL.
The accused conspired to turn NSEL into a non-banking institution, the police claimed.
In January, the first chargesheet was filed against NSEL CEO Anjani Sinha, two vice-presidents — Amit Mukherjee and Jay Bahukhundi — and two borrowers of the beleaguered exchange — Nilesh Patel, Managing Director of NK Proteins, and Arun Sharma, film financier and Chairman of Lotus Refineries.
On Tuesday, the police will also inform the Bombay High Court of the filing of the chargesheet in the local court.
While the police had dubbed Mr. Shah as the mastermind behind the alleged scam, they said more arrests and supplementary chargesheets would be filed in due course.
“We are still questioning various brokers in connection with the case, and we are probing their roles,” Mr. Sinha added.
Last week, the police had recorded the statement of Mumbai-based broker Anand Rathi.
Meanwhile, the beleaguered company issued a press release stating that it was in the process of examining the chargesheet and would take legal recourse accordingly.
