Links between BSPN Exports and Juggernaut Projects

A climb up a winding staircase up to the 2nd floor leads to a corridor and then to room 225

Multiple antennae stab the sky on top of Swastik Plaza in Thane, Maharashtra, where BSPN Exports, which owes money to the crisis-hit National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) has its registered office. In the lobby is a news clipping about cell-phone towers causing cancer.

Climbing up a winding staircase, you will reach a corridor in the second floor and then the destination--room 225. It’s closed. There is no board outside. A security guard says the tenants asked for their mail to be collected last week as they would be out. They haven’t been back.

An enquiry with the neighbours yields a number. The lady who answered the call, who’s staying on rent in room 225, has never heard of the spot exchange, nor of BSPN. She runs a power services company and is moving to Delhi. ‘Someone has given you the wrong name or address,” she says.

Two doors away is room 227 — Vinuthna Investments Super Market. The name rings a bell. There were reports associating the brokerage with Juggernaut Projects, which also owes money to NSEL.

The boss is out, says one of the two people sitting inside Vinuthna office, watching a television tuned to a business channel as they execute trades on their terminals. When is he in? Usually on Saturdays.

When asked about BSPN, the company used to stay on rent in room 225 for two or three years, they said the boss had asked them to collect any mail in its name.

What about Juggernaut?

A grin. “You know everything.” When asked if both of them are companies run by the boss, they say it’s best to ask him. But he isn’t around. And he doesn’t call back on a number left for him.

A spokesperson for Juggernaut denied any links

The company filings show that BSPN Exports has changed its name to BSPN Commodities, with effect from March. The company has an authorised share capital of Rs 10 lakh and a company document is signed by a director Purushottam Naidu Bethamcherla. Juggernaut has an authorised capital of Rs 25 lakh.

As of August 29, BSPN owed Rs 40.45 crore to NSEL. The total outstanding for Juggernaut through five entities was Rs 219.2 crore. The two companies owe more than 740 times their authorised capitals.

Enquiries in the premises suggest that the owners of Room 227 also own Room 225 and one other business. Society documents suggest unpaid bills.

The two entities that together owe in excess of Rs 250 crore are connected by the man who occupies chair beyond the glass partition at the Vinuthna office.  

But that chair is empty.