Reply to PIL seeking mechanism on unclaimed money of investors, depositors, Supreme Court to Finance Ministry

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Finance Ministry to file its reply, in three weeks, on a plea by journalist Sucheta Dalal in connection with unclaimed money of investors and depositors which has been taken by various regulators and remains inaccessible to rightful legal heirs.

Counsel, appearing for the Centre, submitted before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud and comprising Justice J.B. Pardiwala that a reply has been filed by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and sought some more time for the reply from the Finance Ministry.

The bench granted three week' time to the Finance Ministry to file the counter affidavit in the matter. Earlier, the top court had issued notice to the two ministries, the SEBI and the RBI, on Dalal's plea. Advocate Prashant Bhushan represented her in the apex court.

Dalal's petition also raised the issues pertaining to the need for a centralised data website governed by the RBI, which would provide basic details of deceased bank account holders and the need to make the process of claiming funds in dormant/inoperative accounts by legal heirs/nominees' hassle-free.

The plea urged the top court to issue directions to ensure that unclaimed funds of the public that get transferred to government owned funds viz. the Depositor's Education and Awareness Fund (DEAF), Investor's Education and Protection Fund (IEPF), and Senior Citizen's Welfare Fund (SCWF) on the ground that the same were not claimed by the legal heirs/nominees, are made available to said legal heirs/nominees by providing information of holders of inoperative/ dormant accounts on a centralised online database.

"It is submitted that the Depositors' Education and Awareness Fund (DEAF) had Rs 39,264.25 crore at the end of March 2021, up from Rs 33,114 crore on 31 March 2020 and a sharp rise from Rs 18,381 crore at the end of March 2019. Further the amount lying with the IEPF, started at Rs 400 crore in 1999, was 10 times higher at Rs 4,100 crore at the end of March 2020," said the plea.

The plea said the information of deceased investors whose deposits, debentures, dividends, insurance and post office funds etc., have been transferred to the IEPF, is not readily available on the website of IEPF. "The IEPF authority publishes the name of the people whose money has been transferred to the fund on the IEPF website. However, several technical glitches are encountered when the website is accessed. Resultantly, people are forced to engage middlemen to get their refunds," it added.