Cuttack, March 22: The Justice Madan Mohan Das Commission, which had started the process for identifying and validating Ponzi victims in August last year, is yet to send any list of investors eligible for compensation to the government.

Last year, the commission had started their work by taking up a batch of around 6,500 small investors who had invested up to Rs 10,000 and claimed refund of money in their affidavits.

Notices were also issued to 109 unauthorised deposit collection companies to explain why the claims of these 6,500 investors should not be accepted. But the process had not made much headway in the past seven months.

While notices are yet to be served to more than 30 of the 109 companies, most of the companies served with the notices had either not responded or sought more time for it. Notices had not been served either due to want of address or had been delayed due to staff crunch in the economic offences wing (EOW) of the state CID-crime branch.

Consequently, the commission has been left in a quandary.

Chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi took note of the situation at a meeting he held recently with Justice Madan Mohan Das.

Official sources said the state government had assured to ensure timely serving of notices by the EOW.

"In case of the companies whose addresses are not available, the state government plans to entrust the public relations department to publish the notices issued to them in local and national newspapers," commission secretary Devraj Rout told The Telegraph.

According to the additional terms of reference communicated to the commission on February 24 last year, it is expected to identify the "bona fide investors affected by transactions of fraudulent financial establishments/companies and to suggest the modalities of payment of compensation, the names of small investors eligible for compensation and the amount of compensation payable from the corpus fund or otherwise".