SC seeks responses on unified portal for unclaimed assets

Supreme Court on Monday sought responses from the Union government and a range of financial regulators on a public interest petition seeking the creation of a centralised digital platform where individuals can view all their financial assets, active, dormant, or unclaimed, across entities regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAD).

- Utkarsh Anand

SC asked the Centre and financial regulators to respond within four weeks.

A bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta issued notices to the Union of India, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, National Savings Institute, Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), and the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA).

The notice came on a petition filed by social activist Aakash Goel, who sought the creation of a centralised mechanism to help citizens identify and recover their scattered or dormant financial assets — bank deposits, stocks, mutual fund units, pensions, insurance policies etc

Senior counsel Mukta Gupta, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that despite the Delhi High Court recognising the significance of the issue earlier this year, the authorities had taken no action on his representation.

“The Delhi High Court had acknowledged the gravity of the problem but left it to the authorities to consider a policy. However, nothing has moved since then, and the funds of millions of ordinary citizens remain trapped across banks, insurance companies, mutual funds and pension schemes,” Gupta told the court.