No question of govt taking over National Spot Exchange: Chidambaram

Ruling out takeover of the crisis-ridden National Spot Exchange (NSEL), Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said its parent group Financial Technologies (FTIL) and related entity Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) are under watch and persons responsible for the alleged irregularities will have to pay the price.

"There is no question of the government taking over NSEL. The government is concerned about the regulated entities, one of them is MCX which is a commodity exchange, other is MCX-SX and the other is the promoter of the MCX and MCX-SX, which is the Financial Technologies. All three are under watch", he said in an interview to a television channel.

Chidambaram, who is in Washington to attend the IMF-World Bank meetings, said NSEL has been operating under an exemption order and "if it has defrauded any of its investors or clients, (it) must pay a price."

NSEL, promoted by Jignesh Shah-led FTIL, is facing payment crisis of Rs 5,600 crore.

The finance minister also said the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Maharashtra Police had registered a case and was probing the alleged irregularities. "They made one arrest before I left. I didn't know about the second arrest. Those who have committed the acts of malfeasance or misfeasance will pay a price," he said.

As far as MCX-SX is concerned, Chidambaram said Sebi had forced two of its directors to resign. The MCX-SX, he said, "is now managed by a board which does not have suspected or tainted people."

With regards to MCX, the finance minister said: "The show-cause notice has been issued, the two weeks period is to expire and the FMC (Forward Markets Commission) regulator will take action after he receives the reply to the show cause notice".