Order

S.N. Variava, J.—All these Appeals can be disposed of by this common Order as the issue involved is the same.

2. Briefly stated the facts are as follows.

3. The Appellant is a statutory corporation established under Section 3 of the UTI Act, 1963. As part of its activities the Appellants float various schemes. Under the various schemes from time to time, the Appellant issue cheques towards maturity amount of the units purchased and/or towards repurchase value. It appears that the Appellant normally draw Account Payee, Non-transferable and Not Negotiable cheques and send them to the payee by registered post.

4. The Appellant started receiving a large number of complaints from unit holders alleging non-receipt of the cheques. In all 1600 unit holders had not received cheques of the value of app. Rs. 3 Crores 35 lakhs. All these cheques were intercepted, new accounts opened in Banks/Post Offices in the names of payees of the cheques and thereafter the monels were withdrawn leaving a minimum balance in the accounts. In respect of this colossal fraud, F.I.Rs. have been lodged, investigations and prosecution are in progress.

5. As the unit holders had not received the money, they filed