Supreme Court asks Sahara to disclose source of Rs 23,000 crore in refunds to investors

The Supreme Court asks Sahara to provide details of source of the Rs 23,000 crore it claims to have refunded to the 3 crore investors, reported Aseem Manchanda.

The Supreme Court asked Sahara to show documents related to funds return.

The apex court also asked the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to look into the Sahara deal on Grosvenor House hotel, London sale and investigate if anything is amiss.

The company in a statement in July said, "Saharasri offers gratitude to all who stood by Sahara in difficult times," adding, "Sahara has already deposited more than Rs 14,000 crore with SEBI, but in the last 43 months, Sebi has repaid only around Rs 50 crore to the esteemed Investors, of course after verification all these monies shall come back to Sahara.”

Sebi had auction several Sahara properties to recover the funds from the company to pay the investors as directed by the Supreme Court.

In the long-running Sebi-Sahara case, the Supreme Court  (SC) in August 2012 had ordered the Lucknow-based conglomerate to deposit with the regulator over Rs 24,000 crore collected from nearly three crore investors through issuance of some bonds.

While Sahara group maintains that it had directly refunded to investors nearly 95% of the money, it has also deposited a portion of the amount with Sebi.

Sebi in June was preparing for auction of nearly 60 land parcels of Sahara group out of which dates have been fixed for July so far for 26 properties with a reserve price of about Rs 3,100 crore.