EOW attaches 3 accounts of 63 Moon Technologies with Rs 4.8 billion funds

The Economic Offense Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police, investigating the NSEL scam, has attached three accounts of 63 Moons Technologies (earlier FTIL). EOW also proposes to attach IPR of the company's ODIN software.

In a statement, 63 Moons said “this has been done to weaken the legal defines of the company which is our undisputable legal right”.

According to sources, Maharashtra government issued a notification to attach 3 accounts in which 63 Moons’ earlier attached assets accrued interest/benefits worth Rs 4.8 billion were credited.

Earlier, EOW had already attached Rs 19 billion worth of 63 Moons'assets, including shares and mutual funds, bank fixed deposits. etc, while investigating the National Spot Exchange fiasco. The spot exchange had defaulted on payments to the tune of Rs 56 billion to 13,000 investors as 24 borrowers on the exchange failed to make payments on settlements on 14 August 2013.

The accrued benefits/interest of the Rs 19 billion assets attached were deposited in three bank accounts which have been now attached by the EOW. The amount is these account is around Rs 4.8 billion.

EOW also proposed to attach intellectual property rights (IPR) of ODIN, developed by FTIL, a software widely used by brokers and most popular so far. The proposal is currently pending with the Maharashtra government and will be attached once EOW gets notified.

If and when the state permits attachment of ODIN IPR, EOW, according to sources, will put all royalty income etc in an escrow account with an intention to distribute that to the NSEL investors. However, to attach and use the proceeds can also be seen as a big challenge because the Rs 4.8 billion lying in the attached accounts as accrued benefits of the earlier attached assets cannot be distributed by EOW to NSEL investors without getting it approved from the respective judiciary authorities/court.

Once the judiciary approves the use of the attached funds, the money will be put under the jurisdiction of the competent authority appointed for this case under Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act (MPID Act) by the state government.

A fund of Rs 1 billion is with authority as of now. The EOW completed an auction of 6 properties, while another 30 properties were cleared by the appropriate court for auction.

Of these 30, valuation of 14 properties, which have some big assets in Delhi, Bikaner etc, has been completed by the HDFC Realty, appointed to carry out their e-auction, likely in a month's time.