NSEL sacks top brass; fails to fully pay up first tranche

National Spot Exchange has sacked its entire top management, including CEO Anjani Sinha, as the beleaguered bourse could manage to pay just over half of Rs 175 crore first tranche of payment due to investors today.
The Jignesh Shah owned Financial Technologies-promoted NSEL, which has been barred from offering trade in any commodity following irregularities, also sacked its CFO Shashidhar Kotian and five others with immediate effect.
Meanwhile, sector regulator Forward Markets Commission (FMC) wrote to NSEL Board saying the default in payment in first tranche casts "serious doubts" on credibility of the exchange.
As the exchange failed to pay up the committed amount of Rs 174.72 crore, the NSEL Investors Fourm as well as brokers threatened to take legal remedy at the earliest.

"The board decided that the current key management team headed by Anjani Sinha and other relevant heads of departments be removed from their current assignments, pending an enquiry," NSEL said in a statement.
The board has also announced the appointment of PR Ramesh as an "officer on special duty" to exercise all powers of a CEO and will report to the board directly.

The others who have been removed are Amit Mukherjee, Assistant Vice-president for business development; Jai Bhaukhundi, Assistant VP for market operations; Santosh Mansingh, and HB Mohanty, assistant VPs for market operations; and Maneesh Chandra Pandey, Business Development Manager.

The statement said Sinha will cease to be the MD & CEO of NSEL with immediate effect and he will be a special officer assisting in recovery process.
NSEL said 15 members (buyers) have made payment of Rs 92.12 crore today, while nine of them have defaulted.
The defaulter members include Ark Imports Pvt Ltd, Loil Overseas Foods Ltd, Lotus Refineries Pvt Ltd, N K Proteins Ltd, NCS Sugars, Spin Cot Textiles, Tavishi Enterprises, Vimladevi Agrotech and Yathuri Associates, it said.