Status quo in FTIL-NSEL merger case to continue till Feb 4, 2015: Bombay HC

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Monday continued its order of status quo on the proposed merger of the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) with Financial Technologies (India) Ltd (FTIL) till February 4.
A bench of justice VM Kanade and justice Revat Mohite-Dere was hearing a writ petition filed by FTIL challenging the proposed merger. Earlier on November 27, the HC had directed staus quo on a October 21 draft government order for the merger in public interest
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When the matter came on board, the bench took strong exception to a letter written by the NSEL investors' forum on December 3 which asked justice Kanade to recuse himself from the matter.
The bench candidly asked the counsels appearing for each of the parties including the counsels for the ministry of corporate affairs, the FMC and the investors if they had any objection to justice Kanade taking up the matter and that if anyone had any objection then justice Kanade offered to recuse himself.
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All the counsels expressed their full faith and confidence in justice Kanade and deprecated the practice of writing such a “specious letter by the NSEL Investors' Forum with the sole objective of doing forum shopping’’. The bench then issued contempt notice to the investors.
Abhishek Manu Snghvi representing NSEL and Iqbal Chagla senior counsel for Forwards Market Commission deprecated the letter which accused the court of possible bias.
The merger would be finalized after feedback from all stakeholders, the government had said. FTIL owns 99.99% in NSEL which is caught up in the Rs 5000 crore controversy since last July.