"The total amount of shares pending delivery to us by the clearing house had amounted to close to Rs 45 crore at one stage and has come down significantly. We have asked them to sort out the problem by the weekend. A reconciliation exercise is going on. We are in talks with the exchange every day and are hence hopeful that the reconciliation would take place by Sunday," said a top SHCIL source, on condition of anonymity.

SHCIL sources admitted that an apparent "systems failure" at the clearinghouse leading to "delays" in delivery had been detected "sometime back". "We have however been informed that there was no theft at the clearing house as rumoured and that the problems occurred due to problems pertaining to a sudden increase in the number of shares available for forward trading post February 23," said sources.

"On the other hand, domestic institutions which are our major clients have been heavy buyers in the past 2-3 months and this could have led to pressure on the clearing house," said the SHCIL source. The market, however, does not seem to buy this argument. There are rumours that the situation is serious and needs a thorough investigation. Sebi is already looking into the matter.

A custodial source said that the findings that a large number of shares were not delivered to institutional investors, is strange considering that the official stand of the exchange with regard to all the recent settlements, has been that the pay-out has been successfully concluded.

"Some of our investorscould have lost money. They had paid the money but did not receive the shares on time. Is it not a loss for them," asked another custodian miffed with the recent developments? The mismatch in the shares to be delivered to custodians had come to light recently. This led to an internal audit carried out by the Bank of India, which has a 51 per cent stake in BoI Shareholding. The audit had, however, given a clean chit to the clearing house.