Awareness towards IEPF and reclaim process is very-very low: Sanjeev Bajaj, NISM

" See there are five things which the fund authority generally uses the fund for so if anybody has been deceived or the rightful owner has been cheated because somebody else has claimed the money, in that case also the disgorged amount can be claimed," says Sanjeev Bajaj, NISM...

Government established IEPF in 2016 under the Companies Act 2013 to help the investors reclaim their money and the funds which as you mentioned Rs 5000 crore plus-plus 1.6 billion shares were lying with the companies...

The refund rate is below 2% as of now of the total unclaimed money because the awareness rate as you mentioned, the awareness related to the fund is very poor and in terms of shares, it was just 21.8 million shares out of the 1.16 billion shares have been claimed by the rightful owners so far..

So in that case, the joint holder has to first of all get the documents, the person who has deceased, his name is to be delisted from the RTA records and the ownership is to be established with only the people, the holders who are alive..

So in case if the physical documents are missing and the person who is the rightful owner, the legal heir, if they can establish by any means to the company that they are the rightful owner and they can get a duplicate share certificate issued or debenture certificate issued, otherwise they will not be in position to claim further..

You might be interested in