Don't accept plea from erring firm: Madras High Court

Chennai: The Madras High Court directed the Registry of its Madurai Bench not to entertain any petitions from the directors of Disc Assets Lead (India) Limited, which cheated over 9 lakh depositors to the tune of '760 crore. The court also ordered the transfer of all the pending cases connected with the scam to the Principal Bench.

The First Bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose gave the directive following allegations that the directors of the company are trying to get away from the criminal cases registered against them by approaching the Madurai Bench, while this bench has already appointed a committee to identify and settle dues to over 9 lakh depositors. The committee also pointed out that when they approached Cholamandalam Securities Limited managing the Demat account of the company, with a request to sell the shares owned by the company and transfer the proceeds to the court-appointed committee, they rejected its request and were demanding PAN in the name of the committee to transfer the proceeds.

The counsel for the committee also informed the Bench that the directors were not cooperating with the probe and requested the bench to order their appearance to know the seriousness of the case.The bench directed the Cholamandalam Securities Limited to sell the shares in the Demat account of the company and deposit the proceeds thereon in the joint account of the committee. Since the company has a PAN card, there can be no question of insistence of any separate PAN in the name of the committee or PAN card of any of the committee members, the bench added.  

Originally, the company floated land purchase schemes and collected '1,137 crore from about 12 lakh investors and allegedly cheated them. The company claimed that it had settled the dues of 3 lakh investors amounting to '500 crore and there were 9.50 lakh investors, whose dues to the tune of '761 crore were yet to be settled. In June 2016, the Economic Offences Wing police had filed an FIR which led to criminal proceedings under  provisions of IPC and TNPID Act.