In a bid to douse the fire on the issue of Karvy Stock Broking (KSBL), NSDL, India’s largest share depository, said that it had returned shares lying in the account of the brokerage house to 82,599 clients. According to sources close to market regulator SEBI, the rough estimates of shares transferred to the respective clients of Karvy stood at around ₹2,000 crore. Securities belonging to around 7,000-8,000 clients are yet to be transferred, the sources said. But it is likely that these clients may not have paid full amount of their shares.

As on October 1, KSBL had around 1,33,000 clients who had their securities lying with the brokerage house. There were around 90,000 clients who still had their securities in Karvy’s account when SEBI issued its partial ban order on November 22. The value of these securities was then around ₹2,800 crore, the sources said. Karvy had pledged these securities in favour of lenders to avail loan against shares. SEBI and stock exchange NSE had accused Karvy of pledging client shares without their consent even when it was disallowed by SEBI.

“There are around 8,000 clients whose security still remains with Karvy and a decision over it has to be taken,” said the sources.

While NSDL has returned securities to respective clients, the lenders of Karvy have approached Securities and Appellate Tribunal (SAT) against SEBI order as they had the charge over Karvy’s securities. The matter would now be a long drawn legal matter, experts say.

“As per the directions of SEBI and under supervision of NSE, securities have been transferred from the demat account IN300394-11458979 named Karvy Stock Broking Limited to the demat accounts of respective clients who have paid in full against these securities,” NSDL said. Separately, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) said that it had suspended Karvy's trading license with immediate effect.

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