HDFC Life-PFRDA hearing postponed

Status quo on licences to remain; PFRDA may not issue letters tomorrow as earlier stated

The Delhi High Court has postponed the hearing on HDFC Life’s writ petition against the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority’s (PFRDA) decision to disqualify it in the re-bid process for private NPS (National Pension System) to May 15. The court has also directed both the parties to maintain status quo on the licences. HDFC Life had filed the petition in the third week of April.

In the light of this development, PFRDA, which had stated last week that it would issue the final letters of intent on May 9, might not be able to do so.

According to sources, PFRDA will postpone the process of issuance of licence to the latter part of May. The final date of issuance of letters has been already been postponed twice.

When the case came up for hearing on May 1, HDFC Life’s counsel had sought time to file a rejoinder affidavit. Following this, the case posted on May 6 to be taken up. And on May 6, the hearing was postponed to May 8.

Earlier, PFRDA had sent a detailed response to HDFC Life giving the reasons for disqualifying HDFC Life.

In its writ petition in April, HDFC Life had sought the court’s intervention to protect its rights and that of its subsidiary, HDFC Pension Management Co Ltd, of continuing to undertake the pension business. Upholding these contentions, the court directed the PFRDA inter alia to open HDFC Life’s technical bid along with that of other bidders and evaluate the same in accordance with the law.

In view of further developments in the matter, the company was advised to file a fresh writ petition and it filed the same in the Delhi High Court.

After this, the court directed that both the parties shall maintain status quo with respect to the licences.

HDFC Pension Fund, SBI Pension Fund, LIC Pension Fund, UTI Retirement Solutions, ICICI Prudential Pension Funds, Kotak Mahindra Pension Fund, Reliance Capital Pension Fund and DSP BlackRock Pension Fund Managers have applied for the re-bid process to become NPS fund managers for the private sector.

There are also two new entities - Tata Mutual Fund and Birla Sun Life Insurance.

A few months ago, PFRDA had said that all existing private NPS fund managers and new players would have to take part in a re-application process.