NSEL scam: Former CEO Sinha among five named in charge sheet

Mumbai Police, probing the Rs 5,600- crore National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) payment crisis, today
filed a 9,100-page charge sheet against five arrested accused, including the spot exchange's former CEO Anjani Sinha.

"We have filed a charge sheet against the five arrested accused in the NSEL case at the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act (MPID) court. The probe in the case is not yet over. Some more charge sheets will be seen as the investigation progresses," said Joint Police Commissioner
(Crime) Himanshu Roy.

The other four named in the charge sheet are Amit Mukherjee, former NSEL vice-president (Business Development); Jay Bahukhundi, another ex-assistant vice-president; Nilesh Patel, managing director of NK Proteins Ltd; and Arun Sharma, Lotus Refineries' CMD and a film financier.

However, the charge sheet did not mention the names of Jignesh Shah (Promoter and director of NSEL), Joseph Massey and others who played key roles in the fiasco.

"One should not feel that we have given anybody a clean chit just because their names did not appear in the first charge sheet," Roy clarified.

"Jignesh Shah is also an accused in the case and fully involved in the scam. His name is also there in the FIR," he said.

Deputy Police Commissioner Balsing Rajput (of Economic Offence Wing) clarified that other accused who are not arrested in the case are turning up for the questioning as and when required.

"Nobody is untraceable and this is the reason why we did not mention anybody as wanted accused in the first charge sheet we filed today," the DCP said.

The value of over 200 attached properties of all the accused, including of those who were not arrested, and money lying in the 322 frozen bank accounts is collectively valued at a total of Rs 4,500 crore, which  is 80 per cent of the scam value, he said.

The voluminous charge sheet included the list of attached properties of all the accused, frozen bank account details, information of physical stock available in the warehouses, statements of 297 witnesses, said Roy.

The charge sheet has also thrown a light on the modus operandi of the crime, how management was hand-in-glove with the defaulters, how certain borrowing companies appointed dummy directors, manipulation of books by various companies, Roy added.