Sebi disposes of cases against former NSEL official

Sebi today disposed of two cases of alleged violation of insider trading norms against Shreekant Javalgekar and his wife Asha with regard to the shares of MCX and FTIL, the parent of defunct National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL).
Shreekant was associated with MCX and NSEL and is now with Financial Technologies (India) Ltd (FTIL).
It was alleged before the crisis at NSEL came to light, Shreekant and his wife had avoided losses by selling 9,000 and 465 shares of FTIL, respectively during January 1, 2013 to March 8, 2013 period when in possession of unpublished price sensitive information.
The NSEL had to suspend trading on July 31, 2013 after a major payment crisis broke out at the bourse. Subsequently, a number of regulators and enforcement agencies launched their probes into the case.

Shreekant was a non-executive director of NSEL from February 25, 2011 to August 13, 2013.
In an order, Sebi said there was no unpublished price sensitive information at the time of FTIL share sale and hence no violation of insider trading norms as it disposed of the case against the two individuals.

With respect to the MCX case, the regulator passed a similar but separate order.
It was also alleged that the two individuals avoided losses by offloading shares in MCX.
Sebi said that there was no unpublished price sensitive information in existence at the time of sale of 2,000 and 200 shares of MCX by Shreekant and Asha, respectively during the period from February 28, 2013 to March 08, 2013.

Concluding that there was no violation of insider trading regulations, the watchdog closed the case.
Shreekant was managing director and chief executive officer of MCX from July 1, 2012 to October 22, 2013.
The markets regulator had conducted investigations into FTIL and MCX scrips for the April 27, 2012 to July 31, 2013 period.