Mumbai police arrests former NSEL head Anjani Sinha

Mumbai: In the third arrest in the Rs 5,600 crore NSEL payment crisis, former managing director and chief executive of the beleaguered bourse Anjani Sinha was today apprehended by Mumbai Police’s Economic Offences Wing.

Before his arrest, Sinha was interrogated by EOW for several hours, a day after he was questioned at length by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

[caption id=“attachment_1178367” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters. [/caption]

Sinha was arrested for his alleged role in the Rs 5,600 crore payment crisis at the National Spot Exchange Limited(NSEL) which has affected 13,000 investors across the country, police said.

The police had earlier arrested Amit Mukherjee, a former assistant vice-president of the exchange on October 9, while Jay Bahukhundi, another former assistant vice-president, was arrested the next day.

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The ED has registered a ‘preliminary inquiry’ under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, suspecting large-scale money laundering in the privately-promoted spot exchange.

Sinha and his wife Shalini, who is the managing director of family-run firm SNP Designs, were questioned by both ED and EOW.

Sinha, who filed an affidavit before a city court a few days ago, blamed the entire former senior management of NSEL, including himself for the crisis.

The affidavit said he suspected that some of the former senior management members might have entered into dealings with buying members for their personal benefit and demanded a judicial inquiry against them.

He admitted to submitting “wrong stock statement” to NSEL board and regulator Forward Market Commission, based on the report by the warehousing division.

Taking the blame for not informing the board about increasing exposure and risk of widespread defaults, Sinha stated that the management allowed the exchange to function and did not stop trading due to fear of widespread defaults.

An FIR was registered in the case on September 30 by the EOW against Jignesh Shah, chairman and managing director of Financial Technologies which promoted the crippled exchange, Joseph Massey, MD of MCX-SX, the stock exchange promoted by the FT Group, and other promoters, directors and defaulters.

All of them have been charged with cheating, forgery, breach of trust and criminal conspiracy, among other offences, in connection with the payment crisis.

On October 1, the CBI too registered a preliminary inquiry in the case.

NSEL has been facing problems in settling Rs 5,600 crore dues of 148 members/brokers, representing 13,000 investor-clients, after it suspended trade on July 31 on government’s direction.

PTI