Jignesh shah resigns, Anjani Sinha gets judicial custody

After Shreekant Javalekar former MD and CEO, MCX's exit, Financial Technologies founder and chairman Jignesh Shah has announced his resignation on Thursday from MCX board.

It comes eight days after the MCX board meet where he was expected to resign from the board. With Jignesh Shah's exit, it is the third key exit from the board, indicating that NSEL crisis is affecting other group companies too, report CNBC-TV18’s Aastha Maheshwari and Sajeet Manghat. In a statement today, Jignesh shah says that NSEL crisis destroyed everything that he worked for over past few years. He further blames the NSEL crisis for destroying the credibility and trust that he had build over years. He also said that he does not want an event to under mine his reputation and wants to ensure that the shareholders and investor interests are not harmed and his resignation and will keep current mess from hurting the credibility of the exchange. The resignation comes even as Financial Technologies submits its reply on the fit and proper show cause notice to the Forward Markets Commission (FMC) today, giving FMC reasons on why Jignesh Shah, and the others should be considered as ' fit and proper'. FMC is likely to come out with its reply within 2 weeks With FMC also coming out with shareholding regulations for individuals in commodity exchanges now, Jignesh Shah, who owns 26 percent may feel pressure from the regulator to reduce his stake further, making him more vulnerable to sell his stake. His exit is an indication that government, who is already in charge of the MCX board will now move in to take charge of the group company Financial Technologies. The MCX board is more or less government nominated. Currently, board of directors consists of four FMC nominated directors, four permanent shareholder members. The FTIL nominated member position is still vacant, and Jignesh Shah's resignation is likely to pave way for Paras Ajmera to be on MCX board, who was earlier in the race with Jignesh Shah for this position. Meawhile, the session court has remanded Anjani Sinha, former CEO, NSEL to judicial custody till November 13 in connection with his role in the Rs 5600 crore payment crisis at the company, and Sinha's lawyer can move for bail after November 13. Sinha's layer said that Maharashtra protection of investors deposits (MPID) should not be valid or used to indict Sinha since he was accused for sections under IPC (Indian Penal Code), cheating, forgery and not reasons where MPID could be invoked. Meanwhile, investigations are gathering heat, the enforcement directorate has conducted search operations at Mohan India and Tavishi Enterprises in Delhi, Lucknow and Karnal offices. The Economic Offense Wing has also begun investigating the NSEL software, they have appointed forensic auditors to carry out searches with software accuracy and backend and the money that they have paid to FT as software support fees.