Document Fragment View
Fragment Information
Showing contexts for: invocation of pledge in Smt. Deepali Sharma vs Federal Bank Ltd. & Ors. on 5 October, 2015Matching Fragments
10. The complainant was never given any clarification by the OPs 1 & 2 that she would have a right to replace the securities. Clause 14 of the said agreement, which deals with the security of pledge, runs as follows :-
"14. The Bank shall at its absolute discretion may permit the borrower(s) to release part of the securities and such partial release of securities and accepting of additional securities, invocation of pledge of partial securities, etc., will not, in any way, affect the holding of the remaining securities by the Bank and the rights and liabilities created in terms of these presents".
Comments :
Section 12 of the Depositories Act, 1996 and Reg. 58 of SEBI (Depositories and Participants) Regulations, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as 'SEBI Regulations) deal with recording of Pledge, etc., in respect of securities which are held in depository in demat/electronic form. Further, the bye-laws and business rules of Depositors also deal with the same. As per Reg. 58(8) of the SEBI Regulations, the Pledgee may invoke the pledge subject to the provisions of the pledge document. Thus, the invocation of the pledge would have to be in terms of the pledge document and the Contract Act. The Depository merely registers the pledgee as Beneficiary Owner (BO) after the invocation. In the given statement (i.e., page No.21), it appears that pledgee has invoked the pledge and Depository would have transferred the shares from pledger's account to pledgee's account. Further, it is also to be noted that obligation is cast on the depository participant (DP) by regulation 58(9) to inform the pledger about the invocation. Further, DP has the obligation to send the transaction statements to the BOs every month (before the year 2003, it was fortnightly requirement), in case of any transactions in respect of securities. In case there are no transactions, DP has to send a quarterly statement to the BO.
The complainant has stated that he became aware of the invocation of the pledge only on receipt of the de-mat statement dated 25.06.2001 from his DP. This seems to be unlikely in the normal course since the DP is specifically required to inform the pledger-complainant about invocation of the pledge and since the DP was also required to send many periodical statements between 21.09.2000 to 25.06.2001, to Sh. Rakesh Mohan Sharma, the complainant as specified above.
Query No.4:
If in the statement (Page 21), the balance is shown as Zero, then what does the word transfer mean: does it mean 'sale' or mere 'transfer' in favour of the Bank, as alleged in the case. If they were not sold and only transfer in favour of the Opposite party, Federal Bank, then, what are the guidelines of SEBI with regard to the wording to be used in such cases?. Whether it will be deemed to be the 'sale' or 'transfer'.
Comments :
In the Depositor's books, Pledgee becomes the BO after the invocation of Pledge. It is opined that for all practical purposes, pledgee gets title to the shares in question ( subject to the terms of the pledge agreement)/ provisions of Contract Act.