In a new twist to the ongoing National Spot Exchange saga, a defaulter has signed a private deal with an investor to settle his dues.

PD Agro Processor, which had defaulted ₹687 crore on NSEL, has filed an affidavit with the High Court-appointed Committee saying that it has paid ₹54.04 lakh to Ram Naresh Saraf, father of Pankaj Saraf, who was the first to file an FIR (first information report) against NSEL when the scam came to light in 2013-end.

The settlement, at a discount of 10 per cent to Saraf’s exposure of ₹60.04 lakh in NSEL, was made through its associate company Primezone Developers on April 2, 2014. In 2013, NSEL failed to settle trades worth ₹5,600 crore entered on its platform.

Sharad Saraf, Chairman, NSEL Investors Forum, said that he has no relation with the said individual except for sharing the same surname.

No legal standing

“Obviously, we are concerned about how an individual can settle his dues privately. If the defaulter has money to pay, it should have ideally come through the exchange. Legally this may not stand,” he said.

Speaking to media on Monday, Prakash Chaturvedi, Joint Managing Director, NSEL, said Saraf’s family accounted for ₹4.19 crore of the receivables from defaulters and they traded through Capital First Commodities and Way2wealth Commodities.

“Pankaj Saraf has suddenly gone silent after the deal of his father with possible mediation by his broker and Ranjeev Aggarwal, Director of Primezone. Incidentally, Aggarwal was former CFO of PD Agro Processors,” he said.

As on June 30, the exchange received know-your-customer details of only 4,500 clients against the claim of 13,000 by NSEL members. The exchange has extended the deadline for KYC registration to July 31.

Quoting Justice VC Daga’s concern on genuineness of 13,000 clients, Chaturvedi said it is becoming more evident that brokers have mis-sold, induced and forged clients’ signatures for benami transactions using the PAN and KYC lending mechanism.

No urgency by FMC

Wondering why the Forward Markets Commission (FMC) is not showing the same urgency as when it declared FTIL officials not ‘fit and proper’, Chaturvedi said FMC has also received a few complaints against brokers not allowing their investors to file KYC details, but it had just forwarded them to the exchange rather than sending show-cause notice to the brokers.

“Two broking houses have already served two defamation suits of ₹1,000 crore on me. Last week, I received calls threatening my life and was asked to go slow,” Chaturvedi said.

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