A special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court on Wednesday remanded Jignesh Shah, founder of Financial Technologies India Ltd (FTIL), to ED custody till July 18 in a fresh case of showing bogus transaction of crores of rupees related with NSEL scam.
Hiten Venegaonkar, counsel for Enforcement Directorate (ED) had told the special judge Shridhar Bhosle that during investigation of scam related to National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL), ED officials found that several of the transactions showed by Jignesh Shah were bogus.
According to ED officials, they are going to register a fresh complaint against Shah in light of this new revelation. Shah had forged documents like bogus warehouse receipts, falsified accounts created on his instructions. Around 13,000 investors were cheated to the tune of around Rs 5,600 crore. ED sought his custody under fresh complaint.
Mr Venegaonkar said that the ED would request the court to take cognisance of fresh complaint. He appealed the judge to remand Shah into ED custody for seven days.
On the other hand Shah’s lawyer, advocate Abad Ponda, opposed the remand application saying the ground on which custody is sought is part of an old complaint and no new revelations have been made. According to him, the details produced by ED are not new and were available with ED for about a year. He also claimed that ED could not register a supplementary FIR and seek custody of an accused who had been arrested in same case in the past.
Shah was arrested and had remained behind bars for more than 100 days before he was granted bail in August 2014. Mr Ponda also opposed the application seeking ED custody on the ground that as per CrPC, there could only be a police or judicial custody, there is no mention of ED custody, “‘ED is not a police station and cannot seek custody of an accused,”’ said Mr Ponda.
