Four Items on the Registrar's Desk

(i) Late redemption. The 3:00 p.m. cut-off was missed, so the applicable NAV is that of the next business day. Crucially, the request should not be rejected or back-dated to the day of receipt; the unit-holder gets the next business day's NAV and must be told so in writing, with the reason. If a later market move makes that NAV unfavourable, the fund house cannot adjust the price - the rule is mechanical precisely so that it is impartial.

(ii) Transmission claim. There is no transmission here. In a "jointly, either or survivor" holding the surviving joint holder steps in as the sole owner on the death of the other holder; the asset does not pass to the deceased's nominee or legal heirs. The registrar should:

• Update the folio to the surviving spouse's name on production of the death certificate and her KYC.
• Decline the son's claim politely, explaining that transmission under a Will or succession certificate arises only where the deceased was the sole holder (or the last surviving holder).
• Check the nominee registered on the folio - a nominee is a trustee for the legal heirs in the sole-holder case, and is irrelevant where a joint holder survives.

The son should also be told his position: he takes under the mother's estate, not directly from the fund.

Unclaimed distributions are not left sitting in a suspense account. A defined, time-bound process applies:

1. The amount is flagged and the unitholder traced - written reminder, e-mail and phone to the registered address and contact details on record.
2. If it remains unpaid beyond the prescribed period (unclaimed for three months from the due date), the AMC transfers it to a separate unclaimed dividend plan of the same scheme, redeemed appropriately and held in that plan so the money stays within the mutual fund framework and continues to earn.
3. Where amounts remain unclaimed for three years, they are transferred to the Investor Education and Protection Fund, with the required reporting.
4. Full details - name, folio, amount, last known address - must be published on the AMC's website with a clear claim process, and any valid claim must be paid, with the earnings attributable to it.

For the compliance officer the risk here is not just the ₹42,000: an unreconciled suspense balance is a recurring audit finding, so the age-wise unclaimed register should be reviewed every quarter.

Stage 1 - the AMC. Every fund house must have a grievance-redressal mechanism with a named officer and a written acknowledgement. Three weeks without a reply is already a lapse against the prescribed turnaround; the complaint must be logged, given a reference number and answered on merits - if the wrong NAV was applied, the registrar must identify whether it was a cut-off error, a funds-realisation error, or a valuation error, and correct it with consequential compensation for the affected units.

Stage 2 - SEBI SCORES. If there is no reply or the reply is unsatisfactory within the prescribed period, the investor escalates through SCORES; the AMC then answers within the SCORES turnaround (currently 21 days) under pain of regulatory reporting.

Stage 3 - dispute resolution. For a monetary claim, the investor may go to arbitration under the AMFI or exchange dispute-resolution mechanism, or to a consumer forum or court, depending on the amount.

The compliance officer should treat a three-week silence as the real issue: fix the tracking log, close the item, respond in writing with the reasoning, and check whether the same NAV error affected other investors in that batch.