Sebi receives 6,643 claim forms for refund

As many as 6,643 investors have submitted claim forms to Sebi for refund of money invested by them in an illegal investment scheme floated by Blessing Agro Farm India Ltd, the markets regulator said.

The last date for submitting refund applications along with the original proof of investments was October 16, 2020. The initial deadline was January 31, 2020, and the same was extended following requests from investors. As on October 16, 2020, a total of 6,643 investors of the company have submitted claim forms to the regulator for refund of Rs 27.5 crore, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in a notice on Monday. Blessing Agro Farm was engaged in mobilising funds through unauthorised collective investment schemes. The Sebi-appointed administrator observed that a lot of investors have not enclosed the original acknowledgement along with the claim form submitted, the notice mentioned. The total claim amount mentioned in the claim form and the total amounts of original installment receipts enclosed were also not tallying in so many cases, it added.

Sebi asked investors who have not submitted the original installment receipts to submit those immediately to the administrator - B Sathrukkanan. The company had collected Rs 84.30 crore from over 1.3 lakh investors and it claimed to have paid back around Rs 10.41 crore to nearly 13,000 investors, and the outstanding amount is Rs 74 crore. Sebi has already initiated recovery proceedings against the firm and attached properties of the defaulter after it failed to refund investors' money.