NSEL scam: Jignesh Shah granted bail

ED had filed a 20,000-page charge sheet against NSEL and 67 others in a Mumbai court in March last year

A special court in Mumbai on Saturday granted bail to Financial Technologies (India) Limited (FTIL) founder Jignesh Shah, arrested in the Rs 5,600 crore National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) scam.

A special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court granted bail to Shah in the sum of Rs 2 lakh.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had arrested Shah on July 12 under section 19 of PMLA, 2002.

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 ploughed 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 Economic Offences Wing of Mumbai police.

The Centre had also recently 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 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, leading to 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.

FTIL blamed NSEL executives and the trading parties for the default. There were 24 members who defaulted payment to about 13,000 investors.