5 defaulters traded on NSEL without stock

Mumbai: Five of the nine defaulting members on the troubled commodity bourse NSEL did not have adequate commodity stocks in their warehouses even as they traded in hundreds of crores worth of contracts, which led to a crisis worth about Rs 5,600 crore.      NSEL said on Monday it is investigating the matter relating to Ark Imports, Lotus Refineries, N K Proteins, Vimladevi Agrotech and Yathuri Associates.      Similar investigations are expected to start on the other four defaulters: Loil Overseas Foods, NCS Sugars, Spin Cot Textiles and Tavishi Enterprises. These nine defaulting companies together owe about Rs 83 crore to NSEL investors, which they failed to pay last week.      In a related development, FMC chairman Ramesh Abhishek told the NSEL Investors Forum that the regulator was considering declaring the promoter of NSEL, Jignesh Shah, not fit and proper to operate exchanges.