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Stocks fudged and under-reported by NSEL defaulters: I-T

Dept, on Aug 22, conducted nation-wide searches on business premises of about 2 dozen members of NSEL

Jignesh Shah
Press Trust of India New Delhi
Last Updated : Aug 26 2013 | 1:32 AM IST
The income tax (I-T) department suspects possible tax evasion by defaulters of the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL), as it has found that stocks projected by most of them are forged and over-reported, sources said.     

The department, on August 22, had conducted nation-wide searches on the business premises of about two dozen members of the NSEL.     

“Stocks shown in the cases of defaulters on record in NSEL-accredited godowns is found to be non-existent or short in maximum number of cases,” sources said.     

Most of the bill-books, accounts and ledgers of these store houses, sources said, have been found to be forged and under-reported which is a clear case of tax evasion.     The I-T department will now issues summons for production of additional documents to these entities soon as further probe is on, they said.

The department suspects the account books were fudged to dodge the tax net and present a fake picture of activities at these business entities, sources said.     

The I-T searches were conducted in cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Nagpur, Jaipur and few other locations.

NSEL, promoted by Jignesh Shah-headed FTIL, is facing the problem of settling Rs 5,600 crore dues to 148 members/brokers, representing 13,000 investor clients, after it suspended trade on July 31 on the government direction.

<B>Exchanges in action</B>
Meanwhile, stock exchanges have decided to bar defaulters, who caused the Rs 5,500-crore payment crisis at National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL), from all trading activities, as per direction from markets regulator Sebi in the latest crackdown against such entities.

While action has been initiated against nine defaulters so far, more entities would face similar fate if they fail to pay the money owed by them to the NSEL investors, officials at stock exchanges said.

The decision to this effect has been taken by various stock exchanges in consultations with the capital markets regulator Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India).

The bourse managed to collect only Rs 8.50 crore till Friday - the last day for pay-in, against the pay-out of Rs 174.72 crore to be made on Tuesday. For the first settlement (August 20), the Exchange could settle only Rs 92.12 crore out of the scheduled of Rs 174.72 crore payment it had committed to FMC. There was a shortfall of around Rs 82 crore.

The spot commodity bourse had already declared nine members (buyers) who failed to pay their dues on the first day of settlement on August 20 as 'defaulters', following directives from the commodity market regulator FMC.

These defaulters include ARK Imports Pvt Ltd, Moil Overseas Foods Ltd, Lotus Refineries Pvt Ltd, N K Proteins Ltd and Vimladevi Agrotech Ltd.

NSEL has also sacked its Managing Director and CEO Anjani Sinha and six other top executives in the wake of these developments.

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First Published: Aug 26 2013 | 12:21 AM IST

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