Court Appoints Administrator For 4 Crb Companies

Justice A Y Sakhare, vacation judge of the Mumbai High Court, yesterday appointed A K Menon as provisional administrator to take charge of the property, assets and books of accounts of the CRB Mutual Fund, its schemes, CRB Trustees Limited, CRB Asset Management Company Limited and Corporate Services Limited.

Admitting a petition seeking ad interim relief by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) before the vacation judge, Justice Sakhare asked Menon, who was the custodian in the multi-crore Securities scam case, to act in accordance with the directions given from time to time by the high court.

Justice Sakhare, after hearing Rafique Dada, additional Solicitor General of India, appearing for Sebi, also asked CRB Trustees Limited, CRB Asset Management Company, and IIT Corporate Services Ltd to hand over books of accounts, bank statements and all banking and other documents and records in their custody.

 

The judge also sought to restrain all the four CRB firms from dealing with, disposing of, alienating or parting with the possession of any of their assets as well as the assets of the Fund or any of the schemes of the Fund.

The market regulator had called for a report from the trustees of the CRB Mutual Fund as well as for any emergency meeting of the directors of the trust in order to ascertain measures taken by them to protect the interest of the unit holders. Three of the trustees replied stating that they had already resigned while the fourth trustee was out of the country.

Sebi moved the high court yesterday, inter-alia praying for a direction for appointment of an administrator to take charge of the assets and property of the four CRB group of companies as there was no trustee or director to manage the affairs of the CRB Trustees Limited, the CRB Mutual Fund and the interests of the unit holders of the Fund.