Number of pending complaints against cos fall in June

The number of long-pending investor complaints against listed companies came down last month, but still remained high at 811, according to market regulator Sebi.

These complaints were pending for a period of more than 60 days against 25 listed companies, including PSUs like ONGC and Coal India, as on June 30, 2013, shows Sebi's Online Complaints Redress System (SCORES) data.

In comparison, as many as 1,035 investor complaints were pending against 28 listed companies as on May 31.

As per Sebi's directive earlier this year, listed firms are required to redress investor complaints within a month of receiving them. The regulator has said that failure to adhere to these directions would attract penal action.

The entities that resolve the grievances and those against whom enforcement actions are initiated for non-redressal of investor complaints are excluded from the list.

Of the total 811 investor complaints pending against 25 companies at June-end, the maximum number of complaints (161) were pending against Malanpur Steel.

There were 151 investor grievances against Acropetal Technologies , 81 against Oil & Natural Gas Corporation and 46 against Zylog Systems.

ITC (21), Coal India (19), Sterlite Industries (18) are among other firms against which investor complaints were pending.

Besides, a total of 132 complaints were pending for over 60 days against two merchant banks, four mutual funds and one registrar to an issue/share transfer agent (Karvy Computershare Private Ltd).

These merchant bankers included Enam Securities and Kotak Mahindra Capital with 16 and 12 complaints respectively.

Among mutual funds,  Reliance Mutual Fund had 47 pending complaints, UTI Mutual Fund (21), L&T Mutual Fund (12) and DSP BlackRock Mutual Fund (11).

SCORES which was launched by Sebi in June 2011 provides a centralised database of all complaints, online movement of complaints to the concerned listed companies, online upload of Action Taken Reports (ATRs) by the concerned companies. It also helps investors view, track and follow up the actions taken on their grievance.

The online redressal system has significantly helped reduce the processing time of complaints.