A Mumbai sessions court on Monday extended the judicial custody of Anjani Sinha, a former chief executive officer (CEO) of the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL), until 9 June after he failed to secure a surety of Rs.5 lakh for bail.
On 9 May, the Bombay high court granted bail to Sinha in connection with the Rs.5,574.34 crore payments crisis at the commodity bourse.
“It is not a cash bail, we are finding it difficult to secure the surety as the economic offences wing has attached our properties and no one is willing to be a guarantor,” said Sinha’s wife Shalini Sinha. “We appealed for a cash bail before the court but it was rejected.”
This is the second time when the court has extended Sinha’s judicial custody since the bail order of the high court.
Sinha was arrested on 17 October by Mumbai Police’s economic offences wing (EOW) in connection with the payments crisis, after the arrests of Jai Bahukhandi, former assistant vice-president of warehousing at NSEL, and Amit Mukherjee, former assistant vice-president of business development.
NSEL is 99.99 per cent owned by Financial Technologies (India) Ltd (FTIL).
Meanwhile, the vacation bench of the sessions court is set to hear the bail application of Jignesh Shah chairman and group chief executive of FTIL, Shreekant Javalgekar, former chief executive of Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd (MCX), on 27 May.
The EOW of Mumbai police arrested Shah and Javalgekar on 7 May. Both have also been sent to judicial custody till 31 May in connection with the payments crisis at NSEL.
The crisis at NSEL came to light on 31 July. Subsequent investigations have highlighted the possibility of fraud and, according to the Forward Markets Commission, the involvement of promoters.
