Over six years in the wake of starting a Supreme Court-checked recuperation and discount process for an expected Rs 25,000 crore gathered by Sahara bunch from about three crore financial specialists, controller SEBI has gotten under 20,000 cases while two-third of them have been discounted an aggregate sum of Rs 106.10 crore. The discounted sum incorporates Rs 56.86 crore of head and Rs 49.24 crore paid as enthusiasm for 13,543 discount cases made by bondholders of two Sahara gathering firms, according to the most recent update from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
The discount has been produced using an uncommon record made by SEBI, to which Sahara was approached to store the cash even as the gathering has kept up that it had straightforwardly discounted in excess of 95 percent of speculators. SEBI said an aggregate amount of Rs 15,438 crore has been recovered so far from Sahara through the various direction of the Supreme Court and the attachment orders issued by the regulator in 2013.
The regulator said Rs 20,173 crore (the recovered amount along with the interest earned on them after providing for refunds made to the investors) was deposited in nationalized banks as on March 31, 2019, as per the Supreme Court order. Giving update in its latest annual report, SEBI said it had received 19,547 applications involving 53,233 accounts as on March 31, 2019, and made refunds with respect to 13,543 applications involving 38,143 accounts for an aggregate amount of Rs 106.10 crore.
While more than 4,000 cases (involving claims totaling Rs 17.3 crore) were pending at SEBI, 254 cases were pending with Sahara (for Rs 71.6 lakh) and over 1,000 cases were pending at the end of investors (over Rs 3.84 crore). A sum of 131 applications has been proclaimed as ‘questioned cases’ and include an aggregate sum of not as much as Rs 50 lakh, while 542 applications looking for a discount of over Rs 1.57 crore have been ‘shut’ after financial specialists neglected to react.
SEBI had requested Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Ltd (SIRECL) and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Ltd (SHICL) in 2011 to discount the cash raised from financial specialists through specific bonds known as Optionally Fully Convertible Bonds (OFCDs). After a long procedure of advances and cross-requests, the Supreme Court on August 31, 2012, maintained SEBI’s bearings requesting that the two firms discount the cash gathered from financial specialists with 15 percent premium.
Answering to PTI questions on the most recent update from SEBI, Sahara’s legal counselor Gautam Awasthi said the controller’s yearly report “on a basic level just approves our since a long time ago kept up request that Sahara has as of now reimbursed in excess of 95 percent of around 3 Crore OFCD financial specialists of its two organizations”.
He said it was a case of “double payment” as Sahara first made the repayment to investors and then an equivalent amount was deposited with SEBI.”We have been requesting SEBI to initiate on-ground verification of investors as per the Supreme Court order of 2012, which has not commenced till yet. If verification is done by SEBI, it will come out that most of the investors have already been paid and all this money will come back to Sahara,” Awasthi said.
He claimed that a huge amount of Rs 21,000 crore deposited by Sahara was lying unutilized and idle in banks, which was “not only hurting the interest of Sahara as a business organization but also impeding the economic growth of our country especially in these testing times of economic slowdown and global slump”. The group said that as the country’s second-largest employer after Indian Railways, with 14 lakh workers, has always built it businesses by harnessing human capital spread across India and by giving employment at their doorstep.
It further said the gathering needed to pull back its development designs that required in excess of 4 lakh representatives because of these barricades, yet once the stored cash returns to it, the gathering would re-start the business extension planned for giving work to lakhs in the nation. Awasthi said Sahara has been asserting from the earliest starting point that it has reimbursed the majority of the risk and had it not been valid there would have been an enormous confusion the nation over because of such countless financial specialists.
“Actually, there is certainly not a solitary FIR on this,” he said. The legal counselor additionally guaranteed that SEBI has wouldn’t acknowledge every single unique archive relating to the speculators, their venture and the reimbursements made by Sahara and a huge level of the reports are as yet lying in the gathering’s godown. In its annual report, SEBI said it has been acting in accordance with the directions of the Supreme Court and its actions are overseen by Justice (retd), BN Agrawal. The regulator has filed 20 status reports before the apex court which have also been furnished to Sahara group.
On Sahara group’s luxury resort project, Aamby Valley City, which was earlier proposed to be sold to recover the money, SEBI said the apex court in July 2018 noticed that the property was not in a position to be sold as there had been no response to a notice inviting bids.
SEBI said it issued multiple advertisements inviting refund claims from investors after the Supreme Court in May 2013 asked the regulator to make refunds to all genuine investors who had lodged their claims with it. The last round of commercial was issued on March 26, 2018, giving July 2, 2018, as the last date. Another clarificatory notice was issued on June 19, 2018, to illuminate the bondholders that it was their last and last chance and no further discount cases would be engaged.
