By Express News Service BENGALURU: Senior IAS officer Harsh Gupta, who is the Competent Authority for IMA Group of Companies, informed the Karnataka High Court that online claim application software has been developed for calling claims, and intends to start calling claims shortly. According to the status report on action taken by Gupta, filed before the division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Hemant Chandangoudar on Wednesday, the Centre for Smart Governance has developed online claim application software, and same is in the final stages of testing. The online claim application will have features for real-time validation of Aadhaar number, mobile number, PAN, ration card number, etc. Permission from GoI for use of Aadhaar-based authentication is likely to be obtained shortly. The software will allow automatic retrieval of depositors’ data from the data maintained by IMA Group. The corresponding IMA database has been obtained through CBI and hosted at the State Data Centre. The online application is planned to be hosted at different operator-assisted kiosks of about 150 Bangalore-1, 50 Karnataka-1 and 5,000 Seva Sindhu kendras, spread throughout the state and which are run by the department of e-governance. The Authority intends to start calling claims shortly, after completion of the above requirements and giving sufficient publicity for a period of about 15 days. As a part of the publicity, a tie-up is being made with a call centre run by the e-governance department, to individually inform depositors on their phone numbers, which have been collected through the IMA database. On claiming advance deposits made by the IMA Group to owners of rented properties, Gupta stated that he has completed action of most of the movable assets stored in the rented premises. He is now in the process of handing back the properties to the owners and claiming the advance deposits made with them by the IMA Group. Some property owners have claimed rent for the seizure period. Applications have been filed by the CA in such cases before the Special Court, for deciding on the amount to be paid back. Income Tax refund “Based on the inputs received from investigating agencies and forensic auditors, there appears to be a prima facie cases for claiming refund of the IT amount paid by the IMA Group, since it had not generated any profit or income from any business activity, but had paid income tax from the deposits received from the depositors. This will be taken up with the IT authorities after obtaining requisite information and opinion on this matter from forensic auditors,” Gupta said in the status report. Provide infrastructure within a month Gupta has written a letter dated January 16, 2020, to the government regarding correcting the nomenclature of his post. When he was transferred from the post of regional commissioner, he appealed to the government to retain the post of Competent Authority with the post of Regional Commissioner or Deputy Commissioner and alternatively for providing office space, staff, vehicles, etc. On this, the division bench directed the state to provide required infrastructure within a month. The court also directed its Registrar to seek necessary directions to issue required directions for special court to take up applications filed by the competent authority for confirmation of properties attached provisionally, on priority basis. 1 lakh depositors affected As on date, the investigating agencies -- CBI and ED -- have been able to identify properties worth Rs 450 crore, belonging to IMA Group as against the claim of about Rs 1,500 crore. The investigation also confirmed that nearly 1 lakh depositors are affected and as of now, more than 60,000 complaints have been received by law-enforcing authorities. The identified assets are totally inadequate to the proposed quantum of claims to be settled by the petitioner in accordance with law.

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