TRENDING STORY Subrata Roy, Chairman and self-proclaimed "managing worker" of the unlisted Sahara conglomerate, has brought shame to businessmen of the country by cheating millions of Indians.
The business tycoon, who says his company Sahara helps small investors outside the banking system and that it has never defaulted on them, has cheated over 3 crore small investors.
But this time, the law has caught up with Roy, who probably presumed that the court would endlessly humour his delaying tactics. The 65-year-old is now behind bars.
Unlike the previous hearings, the apex court did not accept Roy’s persistent claim that he had already repaid his investors in cash.
The case is about optional fully convertible debentures that two of Sahara Group’s unlisted companies – Sahara India Real Estate and Sahara India Housing Investment, which were issued during 2008–2011. According to SEBI, the debentures garnered Rs. 37,000 crore from 30 million investors.
The collection was not in compliance with the requirements applicable to the public offerings of securities.
On 23 June 2011, SEBI ruled an order directing the Sahara Chief and the two companies to refund the money with interest to the investors and restrained promoters from accessing the securities market till further orders.
Unconvinced Roy appealed to SAT. The regulatory body in October 2011 upheld SEBI order. Dissatisfied Sahara Chief appealed to Supreme Court of India. SC delivered its verdict on 31 August 2012 ordering Sahara to repay SEBI the amounts collected through Red Herring Prospectus (RHPs) dated 13 March 2008 (Rs 17,400 crore) and 16 October 2009 (over Rs. 7,000 crore), along with 15% annual interest.
Now, Sahara argues that most of the amount has already been settled with the investors. However, SEBI disputes Sahara’s claims saying that the company has not provided the regulator with proper details of investors that were repaid. SEBI has frozen Sahara’s bank accounts.
Meanwhile, the Sahara Chief has played well his tussle with SEBI in the media by releasing full page advertisements in national newspapers, duly signed by Roy, justifying his side of the story. Roy has claimed, ‘Right from the beginning SEBI’s one point program has been to hit and destroy Sahara’.
Following the whole long battle, Supreme Court of India had summoned Subrata Roy to appear in person before the court of law. Subrata has long been playing hide and seek with law, trying to evade the apex court.
But now, Subrata's game is over. Roy, who started with capital of Rs. 2,000 and eventually built his company into a giant and has assets currently of over Rs. 68,000 crore, is lodged in Tihar Jail for his wrongdoings.
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