Default claims against Delhi broker Kassa Finvest raise to Rs 150 crore

MUMBAI: Investor claims against New Delhi based Kassa Finvest may have reached close to Rs 150 crore. The broker was expelled by the stock exchanges last week after it was found to have diverted investors' money for funding its other business ventures and defaulted on payment dues to clients.

Sebi had received investor claims of close to Rs 40 crore against Kassa till March, following which an order banning the broker from capital markets was issued. But an official said that more investors had come forward in the past couple of months and their claims against the broker had risen to around Rs 150 crore.

Kassa is the second Delhi based brokers after Unicon Securities to be expelled from the markets this year. In the matter of Unicon, Sebi’s investigations have revealed that the broker had used client money to buy real estate and trade in equity derivatives. Default claims against Unicorn too are over Rs 100 crore.

Email query sent to Sebi and Kassa did not receive any response.

Close to 4000 investor complaints have been received by Sebi so far against Kassa and Unicon. Sebi has asked stock exchanges to declare brokers like Kassa and Unicon as defaulters, the official said. It is only after brokers are declared defaulters, their clients can get dues from investor protection fund maintained by the stock exchanges. Though Kassa and Unicon have been expelled from market, they are yet to be declared as defaulters by the exchanges.

The Sebi official said that a few other brokers, including Vasanti Securities, Royal International and Click2trade, too were on the regulatory radar and action was being taken against them over client complaints regarding non payment of dues.