The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Friday moved the Supreme Court, seeking further attachment and sale of Sahara group’s assets for realisation of money to refund the group’s 3.3 crore investors.
Sebi, in its fresh application, said Sahara group’s refund theory was found to be untenable and the proof of refund held to be insufficient to establish the claims made by the group’s chief, Subrata Roy.
It alleged that Sahara group had failed to provide crucial documents to verify its claims, and that there are “various lacunae, contradictions and inconsistencies in the documents” that it has already pointed out in various status reports.
The market regulator further told the SC that the annexure, supporting documents and terms and conditions of the investment documents have been removed from the application forms by Sahara group firms. Besides, no refunds in cash or by cheque, as claimed by the companies, could be traced in the cash books or bank books, Sebi said in its application filed through its counsel Pratap Venugopal.
The KYC documents from bondholders revealed that “the documents are not genuine and have actually not been made by the investors but have been manufactured en masse, and that the affidavits appeared to be fabricated by the Sahara firms to support their claims about genuineness of investors/ refund made by them and therefore cannot be relied upon”, the application said.
It said nothing further survived in respect of the implementation of the August 31, 2012, judgment other than further attachment, sale of assets and realisation of monies.
“In the wilful non-compliance by Saharas in respect of submission of documents to Sebi, the submissions made by Saharas as regards to verification of documents by Sebi is wholly fallacious and untenable,” the counsel said.
Sahara group has been locked in a prolonged legal battle with Sebi for allegedly breaching norms in raising over Rs 24,000 crore through bonds. The group was asked by the Supreme Court to deposit the funds with Sebi to refund investors, while it maintains to have already refunded most of the bondholders.
Sebi had last year sought direction to two Sahara group firms to pay Rs 62,602.90 crore in compliance with the court’s earlier orders, failing which Roy would be taken into custody.
Roy and two group directors are out on parole since May 2016, after spending two years in Delhi’s Tihar Jail. They had been in judicial custody since March 4, 2014, for not complying with the apex court’s August 31, 2012, and December 5, 2012, orders relating to refund more than Rs 24,029 crore raised from three crore bond investors by two group firms. The parole was first granted to enable Roy to attend his mother’s funeral, and has been extended from time to time since.