I-T starts scrutiny of frozen IPO scam demat accounts

The Income Tax Department has started scrutinising over 6.5 lakh demat accounts, which were frozen following 2006 IPO scam, to see if blackmoney was used to purchase equities by persons through multiple accounts.

"Investigation and intelligence wings have started looking into the frozen accounts with substantial amounts lying in them to see if they are linked," a revenue official said.

These accounts were frozen by the two depositories, National Securities Depository Ltd and Central Securities Depository Services Ltd, on January 1, 2007, after investors failed to comply with the Sebi's directive to furnish details of their Permanent Account Number (PAN) while transacting in the financial markets.

The total number of frozen accounts had come down from a little over 43.5 lakh accounts on January 2007 to about 6.56 lakh accounts in January 2009, as some investors furnished PAN details. (PTI)