The Bombay High Court has summoned former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram and top serving bureaucrats, KP Krishnan and Ramesh Abhishek, in connection with Rs 10,000 crore damage suits filed by 63 moons technologies, formerly known as Financial Technologies Ltd (FTIL), and their role in engineering the NSEL payment default crisis.

The Bombay High Court has asked the three to remain present in the court on October 15.

"You are hereby required to file in this Hon''ble Court an appearance in person and a written statement for your defence and serve a copy of the written statement on the plaintiff within 12 weeks from the service of this summons on you," said the Bombay High Court order, dated July 24.

63 moons filed a Rs 10,000 crore damage suit against Chidambaram, Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development, and Ramesh Abhishek, then Chairman of Forward Market Commission (FMC), and now the outgoing Secretary, Department for Industrial Policy and Promotion (DPIIT), stating that the company has been facing continuous targeted and mala fide actions in the wake of an engineered payment default crisis at one of its subsidiaries, the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL).

According to the lawsuits, there is no money trail traced to NSEL, 63 moons and its founder Jignesh Shah by multiple investigative agencies. However, the group has been singularly targeted as part of a conspiracy by Chidambaram, Krishnan and Abhishek who wanted to protect the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in which they had vested interests. These malicious actions perpetrated against 63 moons caused a damage of Rs 10,000 crore to its shareholders.

During his presentation to the media on the NSEL saga in February this year, 63 moons mentor Jignesh Shah had said Abhishek, as FMC Chairman, played a proactive role in perpetrating the NSEL crisis, destroying the exchange eco-system created by 63 moons to favour NSE, resulting in a huge damage to the shareholders of 63 moons, loss of employment and incomes in the economy.