The agonising wait for justice may soon be over for more than 100,000 Jharkhand residents who had invested Rs 350 crore in Golden Forest India (GFIL), one of the largest non-banking finance companies (NBFC) in the country that had suddenly closed its offices in the state and elsewhere in 2000.

Sources said Rs 950 crore had so far been realised by the Chandigarh-based NBFC, by selling its properties, for disbursement among investors.

"In the past couple of years, Golden Forest sold its properties including land in Chandigarh, Delhi, Dehradun and Mussoorie, realising Rs 950 crore. Its repayment liability to investors across the country is Rs 700 crore. We are hopeful that the process of disbursement will begin in a couple of months," said Sudip Mukherjee, a resident of Agrico in Jamshedpur, from where 10,000 people had invested around Rs 100 crore.

Mukherjee, who is also the general secretary of Golden Forest National Investors Forum, a party to the case pending in Delhi High Court since 2010, said the HC had formed a three-member committee to look into disbursements.

"At a hearing on May 10, the committee's report on disbursement process will be known," he said, adding that all small, medium and big investors were expected to get back their money.

Bharatiya Golden Forest Niveshak Manch welcomed the development too. "We held patience for all these years. Retired employees of Tata Steel, Tata Motors and other companies, and also those who had opted for early severance schemes, had invested their hard-earned money. Many are dead now and others living in penury," said V.P. Krishnamurthy, an Adityapur resident and joint president of the Manch who had himself invested Rs 10 lakh in Golden Forest.

Golden Forest was a representative of social forestry firms that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. It promised huge returns, sometimes in excess of 20 per cent, and thus attracted a large number of investors.

Krishnamurthy demanded a CBI probe into the multi-crore scam, which ensnared 55 lakh people in the country.

One of the NBFC's directors, Pamela Syal in Chandigarh, could not be contacted.