The Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (IEPF) has finally compelled Peerless General Finance and Investment company to transfer deposits worth Rs 1,514 crore to Investors Education and Protection Fund (IAPF).
The company has taken a deposit of Rs 1.49 crore from over one crore individual investors, as per the release. As per the data provided by the company, 50.77 per cent of the total amount was taken in the form of deposit certificates of value of Rs 2,000 or less from investors across 30 states and union territories.
The money was lying unclaimed with the company for the past 15 years. As per the law, a company needs to transfer the amount to IEPF if it remains unclaimed for a period of seven years.
“In compliance with Section 125 (2) (a), matured deposits with companies remaining unclaimed for a period of 7 years from the date it became due for payment shall be credited to the IEPF account,” says Pavan Kumar Vijay, Founder, Corporate Professionals Group
Till recently, the company was supposed to deposit only the unclaimed dividend to IEPF but the government came out with a regulation in October 2017, which asked companies to deposit the unclaimed dividend as well as shares with IEPF by October 31st 2017. But many companies have not complied with the deadline and the shares are still lying unclaimed with them. The IEPF authority had issued 4000 notices to such companies, it said in the release. In the release, IEPF has specifically mentioned that there are companies including NBFCs, which have neither refunded these amounts to investors nor transferred such amount to IEPF even after the expiry of seven years.