As the age-old adage goes – slow and steady wins the race – is finally coming to terms with the Bombay High Court order that quashed attachment of assets of Jignesh Shah’s flagship company 63 moons technologies limited in the National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) case. 

The honourable high court ruled that NSEL is not a financial establishment and hence notifications for attachment of the company’s assets, including bank accounts and properties under the MPID (Maharashtra Protection of Interests of Depositors in Financial Establishments) Act stand quashed.

The seeds of malice against the exchange, its parent company and its promoter, Jignesh Shah have been sown so deep that the market regulator and the investigating agencies have refused to look at the other side for the longest time. Needless to say, all lies around the NSEL crisis are being nailed one by one after the recent court orders. In April 2019, the Supreme Court set aside a Bombay High Court judgment approving the merger of crisis-hit NSEL with parent company, 63 moons, in public interest under Section 396 of the Companies Act.

NSEL, its parent company and Jignesh Shah were persecuted under the MPID Act despite the said act not being applicable to a market dispute. The Bombay High Court has now ruled that the MPID does not apply to NSEL since it was not a financial establishment and hence all attachments made under the MPID stand quashed. 

This was done under the pressure mounted by brokers backed by the then top ministers in the UPA government and their favourite bureaucrats. There has been one-sided war and persecution, in which 63 moons has been conveniently made the target; all concentrated actions have been directed against it. With no proper evidence-led adjudication, the company has been annihilated with multiple target actions: It has been declared not ‘fit and proper’ in a period of just three months; forced to exit the exchange business by selling all national and international bourses at throw away prices; ordered forced merger with the exchange (which of course the Supreme Court has quashed now saying there is no public interest in issuing this order); stopped from exploring and setting up new businesses.

However, Jignesh Shah’s immense faith in truth and the country’s judiciary certainly makes one feel that once again the Czar of Exchanges is rising like the proverbial phoenix!