CHENNAI: Around 2,000 depositors have written to the Chief Justice of India in a last-ditch attempt to recover dues worth 55 crore from IT firm Helios and
Matheson Information Technology Ltd
which promised them attractive returns and issued post-dated cheques which were later dishonoured.
Forming a welfare association, the victims, most of whom are senior citizens, have requested the Chief Justice of India to direct the courts to appoint an official liquidator to disburse the money.
Treasurer of the association K Govindaraju said, "In July 2017, the division bench of the Madras high court directed the company to pay 2.65 crore within three months to show its bona fides of making the entire repayment of deposits to all its depositors within a time frame." But no money has been refunded till date, he added.
Company officials are attempting to hoodwink the
Supreme Court and the Madras high court by repeating the same proposals made earlier, said an executive member of the association S Krishnan. "When the case came up before the apex court in October 2015, company officials came out with a proposal to settle the dues. Subsequently, they came out with a similar proposal in April 2017," said Krishnan, adding that this showed the company had mala fide intentions.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the
Tamil Nadu police arrested three directors of the firm for failing to repay deposits and interest to several depositors in April 2015. Those arrested included H&M's former chairman
V Ramachandran
, the company's chief executive and managing director
GK Muralikrishna
, and director Diwakar Sai Yerra. Depositors, however, said there was no proper investigation in the case.
When contacted, EOW officials said they had frozen Muralikrishna's bank accounts. "We have sent a letter rogatory to the ministry of home affairs to get back the money and repay the depositors," said an EOW official.
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