SC upholds winding up of six Franklin MF schemes

New Delhi, February 12

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the validity of e-voting process for winding up of six mutual fund schemes of Franklin Templeton, and said disbursal of funds to unit holders will continue.

A Bench of justices SA Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna, while rejecting the opposition by some unit holders to the e-voting process, said disbursal of funds has to be done as per the earlier order of the apex court.

The top court had on February 2 ordered that Rs 9,122 crore be disbursed within three weeks to the unit holders of Franklin Templeton’s six mutual fund schemes which are proposed to be wound up.

It had said the disbursal of money would be done in proportion to unit holders’ interest in the assets.

Earlier, the apex court had asked the SEBI to appoint an observer for overseeing the e-voting process.

The e-voting with regard to the winding up Franklin Templeton’s six mutual fund schemes had taken place in the last week of December and it has been approved by a majority of unit holders.

The apex court had on February 2 entrusted the SBI Mutual Fund to disburse the money as all the lawyers gave consent to the court’s order.

It had granted liberty to the litigating parties to approach the court in case of any difficulty in the disbursal of money to unit holders.

The top court on January 25 had said it would first deal with the issues related to objection to the e-voting process for winding up of the six mutual fund schemes and distribution of money to the unit holders. — PTI