Sebi rejects PACL group firm's plea to defreeze bank accounts

The move comes after Pearls Infrastructure Projects Ltd (PIPL) requested Sebi's recovery officer to defreeze the bank accounts.

The company said it has outstanding salary payments with respect to current and ex-employees.

Also, there are outstanding statutory dues like corporate tax, service tax, property tax and employee provident fund, among others. Besides, it has liability of lakhs of rupees towards consumers in compliance of various orders passed by Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission.

In an order passed today, Sebi "disallowed the representation made by PIPL to defreeze the bank accounts for payments of statutory and other dues".

Last month, Sebi had ruled that curbs imposed on PIPL will continue as it rejected the plea to defreeze bank accounts on grounds that proceedings to recover over Rs 60,000 crore from the parent entity is going on.

Besides bank accounts, the regulator had refused to defreeze PIPL demat account and mutual fund holdings.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had initiated recovery proceedings against PACL, its promoters and associate firms, including PIPL, to recover investors' money on September 7, 2016. It had ordered freezing of bank accounts as well as demat and mutual fund holdings of as many as 640 group entities.