Munmun Kaur-
Published on: December 06, 2021 at 20:20 IST
As a response to the petition filed against SEBI’s Complaints Redress System, or SCORES, the Karnataka High Court has issued notice to SEBI.
The petition was filed by Text port Creations and its director Samir Goenka who alleges that SCORES violates the principles of natural justice by handling the complaints in a mechanical way. The system also does not provide copies of the replies sent by the parties against whom the complaints are filed. This deprives the complainant of responding to the replies. Also, the word limit of 1000 characters along with a 2Mb file limit prevents the aggrieved from filing a detailed complaint.
Goenka apparently invested 10 Crores in the Portfolio Management Service (PMS) of ASK Investment Managers Pvt. Ltd. His father committed to investing an additional 25 Crores and was verbally promised 18% return in 2017, but it didn’t come through. After his death, the principal amount was returned to the family. The petition alleges that there was a delay in the transfer of units to the nominee and they also incurred costs of 30.3 Lakh. Their 3 complaints to the SEBI SCORES system were disposed of on the grounds that there was no documentary evidence for the 18% return.
Not to mention there have been several others who have the same concerns with the SCORES disposal system.
In 2019, the Securities and Appellate Tribunal (SAT) while hearing a matter where the complainant investors had alleged that their complaints were converted into market intelligence, had called SEBI’s online complaint management system a mere “eyewash”. SAT, in its ruling, had said, “We have no hesitation in stating that SEBI as a regulator in the instant case has not performed its duties and has kept the complaint pending for more than six years, which speaks volumes by itself. The tribunal fails to fathom as to why the complaint could not have been decided unless SEBI officials had a vested interest in not deciding the matter.”