Jignesh Shah, who was chairman of Financial Technologies India Ltd. (FTIL) when the ₹5,600 crore settlement scam at the National Spot Exchange Ltd. (NSEL) came to light, said no director of FTIL or MCX had traded on the basis of insider information, disputing the conclusion reached by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to justify its recent order.
“The heart of it [SEBI order] is unpublished price sensitive information,” Mr. Shah told reporters. The information on NSEL being issued show cause notice had been in the public domain and hence, could not be called “unpublished”, he contended.
He said on December 3, 2012, a question was raised in the Parliament regarding a show cause notice issued to NSEL. Thereafter there were media reports as well on the matter.
On Wednesday, SEBI froze the assets of some of the former directors of MCX and FTIL — now known as 63 Moons Technologies — for allegedly trading in the shares of these companies on the basis of unpublished price sensitive information at a time when NSEL was facing regulatory probes.
The regulator had also decided to impound a total of ₹126.04 crore from a total of 13 persons. This, according to SEBI, was the quantum of loss — including interest — averted by the entities by trading based on the price-sensitive information that was not available in the public domain.
63 Moons chairman Venkat Chary said the company’s board would decide on providing legal recourse to the 13 individuals named in the SEBI order.