RoC recommends action against Asaram Bapu in land grab case

Fresh trouble for self-styled godman Asaram as the Registrar of Companies on Wednesday wrote to the Ministry of Corporate affairs and recommended action against Asaram and his son in the land grab case in Madhya Pradesh. The case relates to 200 acres of land belonging to company called JVL and the cost of the land is over Rs 200 crore.

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Asaram has been accused by the factory workers of cheating and the company directors have been accused of colluding with Asaram to deprive them of dues. The factory was shut down 20 years ago. But the land and the assets were attached by the government for non-payment of dues to the workers.

The owners allegedly leased out this attached asset to Asaram Bapu Trust. The trust was managing two huge temples on the company premises. One of the alleged reason the company shut shop is the huge running cost of the temples being run by the trust.

JVL is a public limited company which was delisted from the Bombay Stock Exchange in 2004 for defaulting on the mandatory listing fees which companies pay to the stock exchanges to list themselves. The company used to be a major player in glucose and vitamin supply to other pharma companies. Interestingly, though JVL did not complain about the matter, a shareholder of the company approached the Ministry with the complaint of mismanagement (of company's properties) following which it (ministry) transferred the complaint to SFIO in 2010 for investigation.