The Bombay High Court had directed former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, former Forward Markets Commission Chairman Ramesh Abhishek and bureaucrat KP Krishnan to file a written submission within eight weeks in the ₹10,000-crore damage suit filed by 63 moons.

If they fail to file a reply, the Court has directed the company to seek an order for ex-parte decree.

Hearing the case on Tuesday, Justice AK Menon said that failure of the defendants to file the statement within the given time, 63 moons will be at liberty to apply for ex-parte decree.

This would mean that the defendants will be left with no opportunity thence to make any written pleading to defend themselves, he said.

The counsel representing Chidambaram requested for liberty, which was rejected by the Court with an observation that eight-week time is more than enough to file written statements and that the defendants are under obligation to file the statement.

In February, 63 moons technologies served legal notices on Chidambaram and two civil servants seeking damages worth ₹ 10,000 crore in connection with the NSEL scam.

63 moons (formerly Financial Technologies) and some of its former executives, including the Group founder Jignesh Shah, are under the scanner of multiple probe agencies in connection with the ₹5,600-crore payment scam at the now defunct National Spot Exchange.

Chidambaram was Finance Minister when the NSEL crisis broke out in 2013, FMC was headed Abhishek and Krishnan was finance secretary. FMC has since been merged with markets regulator SEBI. While Abhishek is presently Secretary of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Krishnan is the Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Secretary.

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