Mumbai:
A company owned by Trinamool Congress MP KD Singh is under the scanner once again. The market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), has asked Alchemist Infra Realty Limited to wind up its "collective investment schemes", where the company has collected more than Rs 1,000 crore from small investors across the country by selling plots of land.
The company was allegedly using the scheme to avoid being labelled a chit fund company. The modus operandi, though, was the same.
SEBI, which acted after detailed investigations based on an anonymous complaint in 2011 against Alchemist, has ordered the company to immediately refund the money collected from public investors. It has also barred Alchemist and its five directors from the markets till the former complies with its orders.
Significantly, the regulator says investors were led to believe that the company was part of the Rs 10,000 crore Alchemist Group - of which Mr Singh is the chairman emeritus - that came under a cloud when the massive chit fund scam was unearthed in West Bengal. The company, though, told the SEBI that it was not part of the conglomerate.
In a response emailed to NDTV, group said, "Alchemist is a law abiding professional group. The group has been in business for the last 32 years and has never defaulted in any repayment to its investors be it institutional, banks or public in any form."
A separate investigation into the firm by the Registrar of Companies has been stayed by the court. It was being probed for raising money from the public by improper means. The SEBI order, though, came after a prod from the Delhi High Court, which had asked the regulator to come out with the order in June after a final opportunity to Alchemist to present its case.