Shcil May Move Appellate Body Over Drt Order

Stock Holding Corporation of India Ltd (SHCIL) is likely to move to the appellate authority challenging the Debt Recovery Tribunal's (DRT) order directing it to furnish security equivalent to the sum of Rs 24.4 crore claimed by IndusInd Bank, the petitioner, failing which its properties would be attached.

IndusInd had sought recovery of the sum and obtained an ex-parte order from DRT preventing SHCIL or persons connected to it from transferring, disposing or encumbering its properties and investments in 17 instruments, including shares in National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Investors Services of India (ISI).

Top SHCIL sources, requesting anonymity, said the corporation was in the process of reviewing the ex-party order, which was passed by the Kolkata bench of DRT on January. " We are reviewing this interim order which reached us yesterday. We will move to the appellate authority next week. "

The order has attached SHCIL's 5 acre plot with unfinished building at Shilpata in Mumbai. In addition to SHCIL's shareholding in NSE and ISI, the tribunal has also attached investment of the corporation in bond funds of UTI and LIC and various government securities as well.

The order has also attached properties of Harish Chandra Biyani- one of three defaulters of the Calcutta Stock Exchange during the March payment crisis. Biyani's properties-namely, his one-seventh share in residence at Ballygunge Circular Road, a flat on Camac Street, a farm house in Bangalore and a 28.7 per cent stake in Biyani Securities.

The same set of properties of Biyani were attached by the Calcutta High Court on application of a petition filed by Calcutta Stock Exchange in a money-suit.

The DRT order said "there was a situation of prima facie malafide conduct and transaction on the part of the defendants", namely SHCIL and Biyani. The order also appointed a senior official of the bank as receiver to prepare the inventories of the properties of SCHIL and Biyani.

Last year, SHCIL had given three post dated cheques amounting over Rs 24 crores to Biyani who, in turn, discounted them to IndusInd Bank. SHCIL also undertook that the cheques would be cleared on presentation.

In the petition filed before DRT under section 19 of the Debt Recovery Tribunal Act, IndusInd Bank alleged that the three cheques were dishonored on presentation and therefore prayed for recovery of the money from both the parties.