Expressing displeasure with Sebi over FTIL stance that the Companies Act cannot be invoked to merge NSEL with itself as interests of NSEL investors are not ?public interest?, the NSEL Investors Forum has sought a fresh appointment with finance minister Arun Jaitely.

In a press release on September 16, Financial Technologies- India (FTIL) had said: ?The interest of the 13,000 clients of the brokers who traded on NSEL platform for higher returns cannot be termed as ?public interest? when 66% of the entire outstanding amount is being claimed by just 6% of the trading clients (by just 781 persons).?

The forum has told Sebi that the amount outstanding of each investor is not relevant. ?All investors, including 94% of small investors as claimed by FTIL, have, in fact, invested a large portion of their wealth simply because NSEL (which was controlled and masterminded by Jignesh Shah and FTIL) induced them to invest promising safe, fixed return arbitrage with full knowledge of FTIL.? These small investors are virtually now on the street, the forum added. An e-mail sent to FTIL on Thursday was not answered till the time of going to press.

The letter written to Sebi said: ?Commodity trade in India has fallen by nearly 60% in last year, clearly showing that investors have lost interest in commodity exchanges… This is nothing but public interest. The top 6% investors also include PSUs like MMTC and PEC where direct public money and, hence, public interest is involved. Such investors also have a larger stake in economy, which gets hurt if their sentiments are affected. There will also be a direct loss to the exchequer by 30% of income-tax setoffs claimed (about Rs 1,600 crore) due to the scam, which is passed on to the common man for the fraud perpetrated by FTIL.?

FTIL had said that if interests of NSEL investors are considered as public interest than ?interests of more than 60,000 public shareholders of FTIL are equally important ?public interest?? and asked if it was right to subject the public shareholders of FTIL to a non-existent liability of Rs 5,500 crore through a forced merger when existence of any legal liability is sub-judice.

The investors forum said as per the last annual report of FTIL, out of about 60,000 shareholders, 56,254 hold 500 or less number of shares. It is only 133 large shareholders who are holding over 86.33% shares (10,000 shares). ?…these shareholders are mostly connected to the main architect of fraud Mr Jignesh Shah and his associates and, hence, the figure of 60,000 shareholders is nothing but an eye wash.?