NSEL launches campaign to clear air over payment crisis

Facing a barrage of problems on several fronts, scam-hit NSEL has launched a massive media outreach explaining the circumstances leading to the Rs 5,600-crore payment crisis as well as how it has been “singled out” and no action has been taken against the real culprits.

Seeking a “fair chance” to explain its stand, NSEL in a two-volume book titled ‘Truth about NSEL’ attempts to clear the air around its promoter firm, Financial Technologies (FTIL), and how its new board is attempting to recover and rebuild the exchange.

It explains the National Spot Exchange Ltd’s (NSEL) point of view on various aspects of the crisis that surfaced in end July 2013.

“Many a version of the saga has been floated and is doing the rounds in all forms of media. In most of the stories, the villainy has been laid on NSEL, FTIL, and on the promoters of FTIL.

An impression, which is far from the truth, is being created to our own dismay,” said NSEL Joint Managing Director Prakash Chaturvedi in a covering letter issued along with the book.

Stating that the NSEL crisis was used as an opportunity and excuse to kill the group, he said, “The series of action that have been taken against NSEL, FTIL and their directors are far beyond the legal. The decisions appear motivated to single out NSEL and FTIL.

“Simultaneously, little or no action has been taken against the real collective forces responsible for creating this force majeure accident,” he said.

While the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) on its part has been concentrating on making recoveries from defaulting members, Chaturvedi said, “This unfortunately is being interpreted as its weakness and NSEL, therefore, has decided to reveal the facts for the consumption of all the important opinion and decision makers in the country.”

The NSEL unfortunately has been “prey to a conspiracy carefully crafted by an unholy alliance of market competitors, some bureaucrats, and their political masters,” he said.

He also said “the crisis was engineered by fuelling the market with the objective of first contriving a settlement default and then disallowing a calibrated shutdown, which culminated in a payment crisis for the exchange.”

While explaining who benefited from the crisis, NSEL in the book said: “Only the egos of a couple of officials who were keen to destroy the group... Can India afford such officials who could undermine national interest? ”

The book also said that NSEL’s parent company FTIL suffered the most from the crisis.

“Not only injustice was meted to FTIL but added to it are other painful measures such as the hurry to declare promoters not ‘fit and proper’, the vilification campaign, unverified rumours, which have pushed the group into a corner grasping for a little justice,” the book added.

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