Delhi Police question Jignesh Shah

EOW examines FTIL promoter for over 5 hours on an NSEL payment case, subsequent to city court order

Close to the first anniversary of his release on bail and on a day his company, Financial Technologies (FTIL), was embarking on a new journey by changing its name, Jignesh Shah spent most of Wednesday afternoon in this city's Mandir Marg police station.

Sleuths of the economic offences wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police questions him on the affairs of payments scam-hit National Spot Exchange (NSEL). This is in a case filed by Delhi-based Classone Exports. A sugar merchandising entity, it had registered the case in August 2014.

Shah arrived at the police station well in time for his 2 pm appointment. Accom-panied by lawyers, he was taken to a questioning area on the second floor. “He was not wearing a suit. He was dressed in white and black. He was made to sit where I was sitting. We did not have any conversation. He was then taken to a separate room for questioning,” said an executive of Classone Exports, the complainant.

Around 5 pm, a senior police official said questioning was likely to continue and Shah might be called again on Thursday.  Questioning continued into the evening. At the time of filing this report at 7 pm, it was still on.

Last week, the city police had won an order from a sessions court, directing Shah to join the investigation. The court has posted a hearing of Shah’s bail application on August 27 and has said no arrest shall be made till then.

The investigators had told the court that a notice was served on Shah "but he is not cooperating and his custodial interrogation is mandatory”. The police want to interrogate on allegations of preparation of fake documents.

“The custodial interrogation is also pressed to unearth the complete conspiracy, to come to know about the government officials who are in collusion with the applicant and other accused, and the  source of documents is also required to be ascertained through applicant under custodial interrogation,” the EOW had told the court.

On Thursday, the high court (HC) here is to consider the bail application of Jagmohan Garg, promoter of Mohan India, the NSEL borrower who is also accused in the case. Garg moved the HC after his bail application was rejected in a lower court last week.

On August 22, 2014, Shah had got bail from the high court in Mumbai in the NSEL case registered by Mumbai police’s EOW. He was released a few days later, after  about three months in custody. Mumbai’s EOW had objected to fresh investigations by its Delhi counterpart, saying the work done by them would be jeopardised. However, the court ruled in favour of Delhi Police, after the latter said this case was different and required separate investigation.

“The Mumbai office of EoW has already investigated the matter and made progress since the last two years. For very strange reasons, a fresh complaint in Delhi EOW has been filed by traders just to harass Mr Jignesh Shah, already victimised due to this crisis...these are nothing but tactics to malign the image and divert attention, knowing fully well that the privity of contract of these trading clients lies with their respective brokers,” an FTIL spokesperson had told Business Standard last week, following the court order.