NSEL case: ED arrests Director of Ludhiana firm

The Enforcement Directorate today arrested a Director of a defaulting firm in connection with its money laundering probe in the NSEL scam case.
Kailash Agarwal, Director of Ludhiana-based ARK Imports, was arrested under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for allegedly not cooperating in the investigations in the case.
The firm is alleged to have defaulted over Rs 720 crore of NSEL investors.
They said Agarwal was earlier arrested by the Economic Offences Wing of Mumbai police in 2014 in the same case.
The ED had recently arrested Jignesh Shah, promoter of Financial Technologies which owns NSEL, in the same probe.

The agency had filed a 20,000-page charge sheet against NSEL and 67 others in a Mumbai court in March last year, explaining NSEL funds were laundered and "illegally plouged into purchase of private properties".

The charge sheet detailed money trail amounting to Rs 3,721.22 crore.
ED had registered a criminal case under the PMLA in 2013 to probe the case, along with the EOW.
After a high-level meeting, chaired by Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das in June, the Centre also directed the Maharashtra government to expedite the resolution of the case by quickly auctioning assets worth Rs 6,116 crore attached so far and refund investors at the earliest.

NSEL's payment troubles started after it was ordered by regulator Forward Markets Commission (FMC) in July 2013 to suspend spot trade in most of its contracts due to suspected trading violations.
The exchange could not settle the outstanding trades, sparking investigations by the police and regulators to find out whether the exchange had defrauded traders by not enforcing rules requiring sufficient collateral to be set aside.
Financial Technologies India Ltd (FTIL) blamed NSEL executives and the trading parties for the default.
There were 24 members who defaulted payment to about 13,000 investors.