The petition, filed in August-end, was scheduled to come up for hearing before justice SN Variava on September 11. It is likely to be heard soon.

The petition follows the Supreme Court order in May, 1998, in a civil appeal filed by Harshad S Mehta, a notified party, wherein the apex court had directed the custodian to place the scheme for disposal of shares for further directions before the Special Court.

The scheme was formulated by the custodian as per the directions of the Supreme Court in March 1996. The scheme was supposed to be forwarded for the government's approval and was then to be placed before the Supreme Court.

Accordingly, a scheme was presented to the government and after some modification it was placed before the apexcourt.

The modified scheme entailed a five-member Disposal Committee consisting of the custodian, B Bhattacharya, Director General of Investigation, Mumbai, NP Sahni, UTI Securities managing director MK Khanna, ICICI Securities managing director KA Chauker and officer on special duty in the Mumbai branch of the office of the custodian, MP Pursu.

According to the custodian's petition, shares of 1,122 companies were attached under the Act. The shares, excluding bonds and other securities, included around 1.1 crore unregistered shares and around 4.4 crore registered shares (including the bonus/rights accrued after notification). The figure of benami shares is not available to the custodian.

The shares in physical possession of the custodian include around 1.03 crore unregistered shares, around 56.33 lakh benami shares and around 1.64 crore registered shares.

According to the custodian, the shares identified as attached properties but not in physical possession are with the respective companies or withthe stock exchanges or in the hands of unauthorised holders.

According to sources, the companies are being approached for issuing duplicate shares in favour of the concerned notified parties.

The shares will be sold by the two broking houses, I-Sec and UTI Securities, only after the registered and benami shares are processed and cleared by the Disposal Committee.

The revenue authorities have been pressing for sale of the assets of the notified parties in a bid to recover the tax dues. Payment of around Rs 250 crore was made to the income tax department by the custodian after a `affidavit undertaking' was signed by the revenue secretary in August 1996.

According to sources, the department is still claiming tax liability of around Rs 2,200 crore from the Harshad S Mehta group. As per a valuation conducted in 1997, the total assets of the notified parties attached by the custodian were valued at around Rs 3,000 crore.