Visakhapatnam: It’s been more than a decade and thousands of depositors in Vizag lost their hard-earned money in the scam involving the VR Chits and Investment Financial Private Limited and its sister concerns. A CID investigation is on and properties of the firm have been auctioned. But the plight of the duped investors continues and they have not got the money back.
Like VR Chits, over 20 chit fund companies have duped tens of thousands of gullible depositors, of the order of at least Rs 10,000 crore in Andhra Pradesh in the past one decade. The amount is likely to be higher than the initial estimate as a probe is still on.
The investors are losing their hopes to get their investment, with the delay in investigation and court interventions into the probe.
The AP government has listed a total of 23 ponzi schemes (From VR Chits to Agrigold) that has duped thousands of people in the state on its website, protectionofapdepositors.com, and the duped investors can lodge their complaints by a mouse click.
A CID officer said most of the chit fund companies in the state have lured people by offering them attractive interest rates, as in the case of Secured Investment Making Services India Pvt Ltd (SIMS) in Vizag. Around 340 crore had been collected by these firms from investors and the depositors were all duped.
The deposits thus mobilised were used by the chit fund companies to purchase land and others properties for themselves. Over 356 such cases were transferred to the CID (Economic Offences Wing). Of the total cases, 137 were under investigation, while 154 cases were pending trial and 65 cases were yet to be under investigation, said the CID officer.
A duped investor of VR Chits and Depositors, B.S. Rao, said the CID has taken up investigation into the cheating by the VR Chits firm in 2005 as the company has duped over 3,800 depositors of the order of Rs 35 crore. The CID has attached the properties of the VR Chits and some of these properties were auctioned. After auctioning of some properties of VR Chits, the government has deposited in banks around '18 crore meant for distribution to the victims as per a High Court order. Around 13 properties of the firm, valued around '20 crore, are yet to be auctioned. A few invest-ors have committed suicide and a total of 352 duped investors died during the 10-year period. Over 3,300 depositors have been waiting for justice.
“We are slowly losing hope on return of our hard-earned money, as the case keeps getting adjourned in the First Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s court due to various reasons,” he added.
Though the AP government has brought in the Chit Funds Act 1982 and AP Protection of Depositors of Financial Establishment Act-1999 (a special enactment that provides for attachment of the properties of ponzi schemes), there still are cases of misuse and siphoning of funds from unscrupulous organisers and promoters of chit fund companies. The government has failed to make certain amendments in the acts and fix up a time-frame, says senior advocate and president of Forum of Legal Professionals, Kuppili Muralidhar.
