Gurudeva Trust flouts rules, collects deposits

KOCHI: The Gurudeva Trust running educational institutions, including SNGIST Engineering College in North Paravur, allegedly continues to flout RBI rules and accept deposits as 'personal loan' from individuals and trust members paying them an interest as high as 12 percent.  Interestingly the RBI and the economic offences wing (EOW) of crime branch are making no progress in their investigation into this even after specific complaints were lodged years ago while the Trust is alleged to have amassed over Rs 20 crore in this way till March 2016.

The copy of the receipt (see pic) in possession of DC shows that the trust received Rs 3 lakh from one Anandan of Manakkapady as a personal loan on May 22 this year, to be repayable after unspecified months at an annual interest rate as high as 12 percent. “As per Section 45 S of the RBI Act 1934, no unincorporated bodies are allowed to accept deposits from the public. Organisations registered under the Trust Act are considered as unincorporated bodies. Therefore, according to law, they are not even allowed to collect savings from members. Trusts can accept only subscriptions, donations and grants from government agencies for funding purpose,” said Abhilash C. S., who complained to the RBI and EOW in this regard.

Even after conducting inspections at the office of the trust over a year ago, the RBI has not taken any action, and it has given ‘surprising’ replies to an RTI query.
To the RTI question “whether the deposit of Rs 19,75,62,475/- collected from the members of Gurudeva Trust as well as from the public towards loan by the secretary, Gurudeva Trust, North Paravur-683520 is in violation of Section 45 S of RBI Act, 1934?”, the RBI has replied that “it is an opinion and not information as defined under section 2 (f) of the Right to Information Act, 2005.”

To another question by Abhilash “whether my complaint (to the RBI) was immediately forwarded to the state police agencies (EOW) by the RBI authorities as stipulated in the RBI Act 1934?,” the RBI replied in last August that “the complaint has not been forwarded to the Economic Offences Wing as the matter is under examination of the Bank. There is no stipulation in the RBI Act 1934 requiring the complaint to be immediately forwarded to EOW.”  Even the direct complaint to the ADGP crime branch almost a year ago has also returned no results.