Sahara 2? PACL employees seek impleadment in SEBI proceedings

A group of employees of PACL Ltd have moved the Supreme Court praying for a direction to be issued to the SEBI to include them in all the proceedings by SEBI against PACL in the Ponzi scam..Senior Advocate Thomas Joseph along with Advocates CP Chandrasekharan, Vipin Nair and PB Suresh appeared on behalf of the Petitioners who have moved the court as a registered society – PACL Employees and Customers Protection Forum..The PACL Ponzi scam has now come to be called “Sahara 2”, with even the Bench likening it to the SEBI-Sahara dispute..By way of background, the Pearls group of companies that include PACL Limited and P.G.F. Limited, had launched a scheme by the name of Collective Investment Schemes (CIS) and managed to collect above Rs. 45,000 crores from roughly 6 crore investors..Unsurprisingly a number of complaints of fraud and serious irregularities were filed by various investors in Haryana, Punjab, Maharashtra, New Delhi etc., pursuant to which statutory authorities including SEBI had initiated investigations into the Pearl companies..The Supreme Court, in 2013, directed that the SEBI shall pass fresh orders as regards the business activity of PACL as to whether it falls under the category of CIS or not and, depending upon the ultimate order to be passed, it shall proceed further in accordance with law..Subsequently, orders were passed by SEBI against PACL and PGF to stop their schemes and refund all the money collected. However, it is the grievance of the petitioners that they have not been made parties to any of the proceedings and have not received any refund of the money collected by PACL..As per the petition,.“….in none of the proceedings instituted by the statutory authorities including SEBI, against PACL, its investors/customers in Kerala have been included and their grievances have totally been ignored. These investors have not been repaid a single penny nor has any intimation been given to them regarding the possibility of getting any repayment from liquidation etc. of PACL.”.The petitioner society has prayed for a direction to the SEBI to include the members of the Petitioner Society in all proceedings initiated against PACL and ensure refund of their dues; Prayer has also been made for appointing a Special Committee for probing the affairs of PACL and for undertaking the task of refunding money to its investors..When the matter came up for hearing before a Bench of Justice TS Thakur and Justice Kurian Joseph today, the petitioners submitted the claims of the depositors and employees from Kerala have not yet been examined by any forum till date and prayed that the Court should monitor the case. Advocate Pratap Venugopal, appearing for SEBI, was present in Court and he submitted that there was indeed a scam, much bigger than Sahara but with a difference – in this case, all the depositors are genuine. He also submitted that another connected matter viz. an appeal filed by PACL against the Securities Appellate Tribunal has been filed in the Supreme Court recently and is likely to be heard shortly..The Bench observed that the matter requires consideration and directed that it be tagged along with the appeal filed by PACL against the SAT order.