Parties to Mutual Fund Trust
As is common to any trust covered under the Indian Trust Act, the parties involved in a mutual fund trust are the sponsor or settler, the trustees, the investor as beneficiary and the trust property. In a mutual fund trust, subscription made by the investor to the scheme, investments made by the mutual fund of the moneys received into capital market or money market instruments, the income received from such investments after incurring expenses incurred by the trust and any other assets bought by the mutual fund out of the investors money are trust property and the investors are entitled to all these properties as per the terms of the scheme and the provisions of the trust deed.
Till recently, in all the Mutual Funds including UTI, the sponsors, trustees, fund managers and custodians were the same persons with no difference of organization and management. But after the issue of certain guidelines by the Government of India on 14.2.1992, sponsors, trustees, custodians and fund managers are to be separate entities with independent legal standing. This has been done with a view to eliminate mismanagement of Mutual Funds.