Karnataka government appoints new officers to handle investor fraud cases

Concerned over undue delays and other problems in initiating action against companies which cheat their investors, the Karnataka government has appointed new officers as Competent Authorities. The appointment is based on recommendations made by Revenue department officials over the past two years.

The government order is among the measures initiated by the government recently to reduce the burden on revenue officials of Bengaluru Urban district, grappling with a large number of cases in their courts.

According to the order dated January 24, appointment of assistant commissioners (ACs) of Bengaluru North and South sub-divisions had caused delays in initiating action against 31 companies due to various reasons. AC (Admin) of Bhoomi Monitoring Cell (BMC), Revenue department and AC (Modernisation of Land Records), BMC will now be competent authorities (CA) for action against fraudulent companies.

While the first CA will handle 19 cases related to Bengaluru, the second will look after 12 cases registered in various parts of the state.

A proposal made in October 2020 by IAS officer Harsh Gupta, Special Officer and Competent Authority (CA) for the IMA case, recommended creating separate CAs to deal with various companies booked under Karnataka Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Establishments Act and Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Act.

The reasons for the proposal were, neglect of CA’s work, since the ACs are burdened with other routine matters, lack of knowledge about their role and responsibility since the task of CA is not a regular task, requirement of personal appearance at the jurisdictional special court “takes a lot of their time from other administrative matters” and the difficulty faced by state authority to compile information from numerous CAs and review their work.

A meeting in December 2020 had discussed the recommendations, and had approved creation of four CAs to look into the cases, along with 44 other posts. However, the Finance department has cleared creation of 19 posts, including two CAs, the order noted.

It can be recalled that the state government had recently appointed another special deputy commissioner to sort out more than 9,000 cases pending in three DC courts of Bengaluru Urban district.

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