The Supreme Court of India has ordered the attachment of Sahara group's amby Valley property in Pune, worth nearly £4 billion, to force it and group chief Subrata Roy to deposit the remaining £1.47 billion it owes investors with market regulator Sebi soon.
The SC had in August 2012 ordered Sahara to repay over £2.50 billion to investors by depositing the amount with market regulator Sebi after it found that two group companies - Sahara Real Estate and Sahara Housing - had illegally collected the sum from 30 million investors. Sahara has so far deposited over £1.10 billion, of which £600 million was paid after the apex court sent Roy and two directors to jail on March 4, 2014.
The group deposited £60 million on Monday as promised in November last year, meeting one of the conditions imposed by the court to continue the parole for Roy. However, when the group's counsel Kapil Sibal requested the court to extend the roadmap for repayment to July 2019, a bench of Justices Dipak Misra, Ranjan Gogoi and A K Sikri said this was unacceptable.
“We cannot be assembling every month for you to deposit meagre amounts like £60 million. If you have got Aamby Valley properties which are worth more than £3.90 billion, why do you need other properties to be auctioned to raise the money? We will go for Aamby Valley if you do not speed up the repayment schedule. July 2019 deadline for repayment is unacceptable,” the bench said.
“If you want to save Aamby Valley from being sold, then give us a list of your unencumbered properties which can be put to public auction for raising the balance amount due from you. Let the principal amount be paid first and we will look into the interest part,” the bench added. Adding to the group's woes, the Enforcement Directorate through additional solicitor general Maninder Singh sought the court's permission to proceed under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against Sahara with regard to certain properties abroad. But the court said it would deal with the ED's application on February 27, the next date of hearing.
Appearing for Sebi, Pratap Venugopal said along with interest, the total amount due from the group as per the apex court's order was £4.70 billion, of which it had deposited a little over £1.10 billion.
Sibal assured the court that the group had decided to pay up but needed time as it was facing hard times because of demonetisation. The bench asked the group to give a list of unencumbered properties by February 27 despite Sibal pleading that there had been developments which had not been placed before the court. “The income tax department has found that 85% of the investors have got refund of their amount. I want two hours to convince the court that there is nothing due from the group anymore,” Sibal said.
