Priority is to recover money: Jignesh Shah

'We have started investigation. Strictest possible action will be taken. Nobody will be spared. We will be more vigil'

Financial Technologies India Limited (FTIL) chief Jignesh Shah met finance ministry officials on Monday, stating  he was doing his best to retrieve investors’ money, even as the Rs 5,600 crore payment crisis surrounding the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) deepened.

“We are committed to recover money. We are not sitting quiet. We would do everything to recover money. The whole focus should be on the 23 borrowers because the money trail is up to them. As a promoter, we are not at all a beneficiary,” Shah said after meeting Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram.

However, investors in the exchange demanded that all assets of FTIL, NSEL, their promoters and borrowers should be frozen, pending the enquiry being conducted by the government.

“We fear that FTIL and all its sister concerns might squander away their assets. Hence, we have demanded  they be frozen till the investigations are complete,” Shuva Mandal of AZB & Partners, one of the investors in NSEL told reporters.

The investors also met Mayaram.

“We have been assured that all departments concerned are looking into the default and necessary and strict action would be taken after the government goes through the probe report,” Mandal said.

The report of two working groups constitituted by the government to analyse the NSEL payment default fallout have given their report to the government, now being looked into by the high-powered committee constituted under the chairmanship of  Mayaram.

“We want all possible angles of this multi-crore fraud to be probed and firm responsibilities fixed. The government should ring fence the assets if the need arises,” Mandal said. He said the investors have demanded that a case of mis-apropriation of property, cheating, forgery, violation of the Money Laundering Act, the role of defaulters and its link with the exchange should all be probed.