Officials in the know said the ministry of finance had directed the income tax department to examine the stocks of some NSEL members. The government was also considering the idea of attaching NSEL properties to recover the dues in question.
"The government would do everything possible to recover investors' money from NSEL," a top government official said. He said its official assessment showed of Rs 5,000 crore of dues, but there might be non-payment of around Rs 1,000 crore.
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"NSEL will have to stand guarantor for this lost money," the official said. On the proposed move to shift the commodities market regulator out of the ambit of the department of consumer affairs to the ministry of finance, for better coordination, officials said the department had not objected. "A formal order regarding the same could be issued in the next 48 hours," the official said.
At present, the department oversees the Forward Markets Commission (FMC), which regulates futures trading on 21 commodity bourses. It was recently empowered to take charge of the NSEL payment crisis.
Officials said FMC was likely to be brought under the finance ministry effective from next month. The President of India, upon the advice of the prime minister, can allocate the business of a particular department to another ministry for smoother functioning. Officials said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram had an informal discussion on this matter. The finance ministry oversees the operations of several regulators, including those of the capital markets, insurance and pensions.