A city court has asked the police for a report on action taken on a complaint by investors who alleged they were cheated of Rs 5 crore by a now defunct online commodity exchange, whose promoters included Jignesh Shah group firms Financial Technologies and MCX.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ashutosh Kumar directed the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police to file the Action Taken Report on complaints filed by 15 investors, who alleged they were cheated of Rs 5 crore by Safal National Exchange (SNX), an online portal that was set up as a commodity trading platform.

The court has directed the DCP of the EOW to present the ATR before it at its next hearing on August 21, 2010.

It was alleged that the promoters, which included Multi Commodity Exchange and Financial Technologies, did not return the membership fee to its 200 investors after being wound up.

According to the investors, they had paid Rs 2.6 lakh each to SNX for membership, but the amount was not returned after the exchange, which was opened for online trading of commodities, was closed.

SNX was a joint venture of Financial Technologies, National Dairy Development Board and MCX.

According to the petition filed by investors before the court, SNX was closed without any notice and the names of its officials were removed from the portal, which too was shut down.

"All of sudden the trading was suspended on the portal without any information being given to the members. Further, the information about the members, directors and contact details were removed from the website. SMS enquiry facility was stopped, all the business development officers and supply chain people were removed," said the members in their petition.

According to them, after dissolving SNX, the members were later given the option to migrate to another exchange, National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL), and trade in fruit and vegetables only.

The complainants further submitted, "Launch of SNX was a plot scripted by FT and executed in connivance of NDDB by which the FT could secure a large number of members for trading purposes at NSEL."

In addition, they were asked to pay Rs 5 lakh along with an annual subscription fee to get full trading rights on the new exchange. .

Suspecting siphoning of money, the investors alleged that SNX officials were paid exorbitant salaries, its office was on high rent and huge amount was spent on it.

According to them, they tried to contact SNX several times, but did not get any reply. "The silence on the part of the management of SNX was a well planned strategy and that too, at the behest and for the benefit of FT, of course, in collusion with NDDB," they said, adding that it was a "conspiracy to cheat" them.

Earlier, the investors had filed a complaint against SNX promoters before the EOW.