About 8.5 million benami shares of several blue-chip companies, including ACC, Reliance, Apollo Tyres and Ranbaxy Laboratories, will be put on the block soon.

These shares are over and above those of Harshad Mehta and Hiten Dalal that were confiscated during the raids and searches following the 1991 stock scam.

According to government sources, the special court designated to hear the 1991 stock scam cases heard on Tuesday the custodian's plea to transfer these benami (where the title of the holdings is in one name and the real ownership is in another) shares seized during the statutory period, April 1, 1991 to June 30, 1992, to the custodian's account.

With no claims for these shares in the last 12 years, the court yesterday allowed the custodian to take them over, the sources added.

The custodian would now write to all the companies for transfer of the benami shares to its own account. It will then convert these physical shares into dematerialised form, the sources said, adding that the shares would later be auctioned as per the advice of the disposal committee set up by the government.

Depending on the quantum and value of the shares, they would be categorised into routine, bulk or controlling. Shares that accounted for over 5 per cent of the equity of a company will be in the controlling category.

The bulk category includes the benami shares of those companies which had a value of over Rs 5 crore (Rs 50 million) and the routine category relates to shares of companies with a value of less than Rs 5 crore.

The sources said, excluding the benami ones, there were about 80 million shares that were seized during various raids and search operations conducted following the 1991 scam. Of this, about 42 million shares had been dematerialised.

About 15 million shares were still to be dematerialised. The remaining shares were junk or with little or no trading in the stock markets. The custodian has already moved an application for disposal of the junk shares.

The custodian has also started the process of disposing off the real estate properties. While it has sold some properties of Fairgrowth in Bangalore, it is in the process of auctioning some others in New Delhi and Ghaziabad, the sources said.

The real estate belonging to Harshad Mehta and Hiten Dalal would also be put on the block soon, they added.

The Custodian has also moved an application to increase the number of judges to speed up the disposal of cases. At present, there were just two sitting High Court judges dealing with 42 criminal cases and 1,400 civil suits. While seven criminal cases have been disposed off, some were pending with the Central Bureau of Investigation.