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Only 1,938 investors of National Spot Exchange have registered for claiming dues amounting to ₹550 crore.
February 25 was the last date for registering with the exchange according to a court order. The final number is much lower than the earlier claim that about 13,000 investors had lost ₹5,600 crore.
On January 22, the High Court Committee under the chairmanship of (Retd) Justice VC Daga had directed NSEL to collect data of trading clients through their respective trading members and brokers in order to ensure and streamline the recovery process. Following this, NSEL issued the circular on February 9 to members to furnish the details by February 25.
The lower number of claims registered by investors led to a suspicion that brokers may have played a proxy by collecting data on their clients’ PAN number. On Tuesday, the Economic Offence Wing of Mumbai police nabbed officials of three top broking firms to further investigate the matter.
Investors’ viewHowever, NSEL investors have a different take on why a lower number of investors have registered for claiming dues.
Madhusudan Desai, Trustee, NSEL Aggrieved and Recovery Association, said in his submission before the High Court Committee, that the mandate given by HCC to NSEL was to crystallise assets and liabilities of defaulting members and arrive at a settlement between NSEL and the defaulting members.
The exchange is now trying to drag the non-defaulting trading-and-clearing members and investor (clients) into the picture by seeking details from them, he said.
As per NSEL transaction records, it has already accepted the amounts payable to non-defaulting members and hence there is no dispute about the claim amount or the claimants, he said.
The case is reminiscent of the Sahara case where SEBI appears to have received claim from just 4,600 investors claiming about ₹10 crore against the total fund of ₹24,000 crore raised by two firms – Sahara India Real Estate Corp and Sahara Housing Investment Corp. SEBI had asked investors to submit refund applications with documentary proof.
In 2010, SEBI had barred Sahara India Pariwar chief Subrata Roy and the two companies from raising money from the public as they raised several thousand crores through optionally fully convertible debentures which SEBI deemed illegal.
However, in the NSEL scam the exchange has already provided a list of defaulters and the amount due to various investors.
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