The Justice R M Lodha Committee has recovered Rs 878.20 crore so far by disposing of immovable assets of PACL Limited for refunding investors allegedly cheated by the firm being probed in a Rs 60,000-crore ponzi scam case, officials said Thursday.
The CBI has handed over 42,950 property documents to the committee besides 79 luxury cars from PGF and PACL including Rolls Royce, Porsche Cayenne, Bentley, BMW 7-series, they said.
The Lodha committee has received claims from 1.5 crore investors so far seeking refund of the investments from Pearl Agro Corporation Limited (PACL) and associated companies, according to government data.
The committee formed by the Supreme Court in 2016 has been able to recover Rs 878.20 crore so far from the assets of the PACL and associated entities, they said.
Of the total recovery, the auction of 113 properties has fetched Rs 86.20 crore, officials said. In addition, Australia-based properties of Pearls Infrastructure Projects Ltd, as associate entity of PACL, have resulted in the recovery of Rs 369.20 crore after the orders of Federal Court of Australia on a claim filed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
The government has recovered Rs 308.04 crore from bank accounts of PACL and its associates and Rs 98.45 crore from its fixed deposits. Auction of 75 vehicles has fetched Rs 15.62 crore while disposal of six property documents have resulted in the recovery of Rs 69 lakh.
The committee has adopted phase-wise and claim amount-wise refund of money to investors of PACL Ltd. depending upon the corpus available with the committee and after verifying the claims submitted by the investor(s), the government has said recently in parliament in response to a question. It was envisaged that only the principal 'amount to be paid to investor(s) in different phases and giving preference to small investors, it had said.
"In respect of investors who have not submitted applications through online portal, the Committee vide public notice dated October 16, 2019 informed the investors to await notification in this regard by the Committee in due course," it said. The Supreme Court on February 2, 2016 had appointed the expert committee headed by the former Chief Justice of India to monitor the sales of assets and refund of money to the investors of PACL.
A bench, comprising justices Anil Dave and Adarsh Goel, had said that the title deeds of various lands belonging to PACL should be handed over by the CBI to the SEBI, which shall accordingly take appropriate steps to ensure their sale for the purpose of refunding the money to the investors.
The PACL, also known as Pearl Group, which had raised money from the public in the name of agriculture and real estate businesses, was found by Sebi to have collected more than Rs 60,000 crore through illegal collective investment schemes (CIS) over a period of 18 years.
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