A special court today remanded three executives of leading commodity brokerages, arrested in the Rs 5,600-crore scam at National Spot Exchange (NSEL), to police custody and asked police to explain the role of one of them in the scandal.
Anand Rathi Commodities Managing Director Amit Rathi, India InfoLine Commodities Vice-President Chintan Modi and Geojit Comtrade whole-time Director C P Krishnan were arrested yesterday by Mumbai Police's Economic Offence Wing (EOW).
They were produced before a special court set up under Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (MPID) Act. Special Judge D P Surana remanded Rathi in police custody till March 7 and sent Modi and Krishnan to custody till March 11.
The Judge also asked police to explain the role of Rathi in the scam after his lawyer alleged his client's arrest was "wrongful".
Police sought the remand of the trio, saying they need to interrogate them in custody as part of their investigation into certain suspicious transactions.
However, defence lawyers said the three were apprehended even when they cooperated with the police in the probe and supplied all relevant documents.
They have been booked for cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and criminal misappropriation, among others.
Defence and prosecution arguments went till late in the evening.
24 people have so far been arrested in connection with the scam.
"The three persons were evasive and non-cooperative (during probe) and hence we felt their custodial interrogation is necessary and we placed them under arrest," Additional Commissioner of Police (EOW) Rajvardhan Sinha said yesterday.
He had said about 130 broking firms participated or traded on the now-crippled electronic commodities bourse.
"Since beginning of the case, the broking firms have been under our scanner following allegations of manipulation levelled against them by investors," he had said.
About the role of the three brokerages, he had said "these firms made false assurances to investors with wrongful and misleading statements, leading to enticement for investments on the NSEL platform. The investors were assured that the exchange offered fixed returns on investments and it is a safe place to put money in.
