PACL Ponzi Scam: More Than Million Investors Get Back A Total Of Rs438 Crore

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) announced on Tuesday that as of March 31, 2021, a total of Rs438 crore had been returned to 1,270,849 PACL Ltd investors with claims of up to Rs10,000.

The regulator barred PACL in 2015 for illegally raising at least Rs49,100 crore from 58 million investors over an 18-year period. The Supreme Court formed a panel in 2015, chaired by retired Justice R. M. Lodha, to sell PACL's properties and refund the money.

What is PACL Scam?

PACL was a chit fund business that essentially took money from investors and in return gave them a plot of land worth a few square feet based on the amount of money they put in. Slowly, they built up a large investor base of 5,15,01,036 people, according to reports, and raised a total of 59000 crores from all investors. They formed new PACL subsidiaries, one of which is PIPL, which owns a 95 percent stake in the company. They also purchased the property in Australia through PIPL.

The Committee has been processing applications received from investors in a staggered, slab-by-slab manner, with claims up to Rs. 10,000/- currently being processed and payments being made in respect of qualifying claim applications.
In a press release dated February 8, 2019, the committee requested that PACL investors submit refund applications online.

According to the regulator, applications in which investors have indicated or marked the land allocated area as "Yes" or where land has been allotted to the investor according to PACL records have been placed on hold and will be considered at a later date. Furthermore, the processing of cases where the PACL certificate mentions "deferred or supported" has been put on hold.

The Committee has also given investors who have claims up to Rs. 10,000/- and whose applications have been found defective the opportunity to review the status of their applications and correct any deficiencies so that they can be processed. The previous opportunity was extended until March 31, 2021.

As of March 31, 2021, the Committee had successfully processed refunds in the amount of Rs. 438.34 crore for 12,70,849 qualifying applications.

According to the markets regulator Sebi, last year, a total of Rs 205 crore has been paid to over 8 lakh PACL Ltd holders, with claims ranging from Rs 7,000 to Rs 20,000.