AMN /
In a major setback to Sahara group, the Supreme Court has ordered to attach Ambey Valley properties in Lonavala, Pune in connection with Sahara’s default in paying the money to the market regulator, SEBI.
A bench led by Justice Dipak Misra gave the direction after hearing from the counsel of Sahara and SEBI. It said, the properties will be kept under the supervision of court.
The apex court also asked Sahara to furnish list of properties so that it could be put into public auction.
Sahara admitted before the court that it had to pay an amount of 14,000 crore rupees as principal money to SEBI. It told the court that it had already paid 11,000 crore rupees.
A bench of Dipak Misra, Ranjan Gogoi and A K Sikri ordered the group to give a list of properties “without any encumbrance” that could be auctioned to recover the principal sum due to Sebi — Rs 14,000 crore. Sebi says total dues, with interest, exceeds Rs 47,000 crore.
Of this, the group has remitted Rs 11,477 crore, Sebi counsel Pratap Venugopal informed the court.
The bench also extended the interim parole of group chief Subrata Roy till February 27, date of the next hearing, after Rs 600 crore was remitted in a combination of bank drafts and online transfers into the Sebi-Sahara account on Monday.
Last month, the court had refused to extend the time given for this deposit and allowed a transfer of £35 million (about Rs 295 crore), raised out of the group’s foreign assets. The whole amount went into Monday’s deposit.
Spread over 10,600 acres on the Pune-Mumbai highway, off Lonavala, Aamby Valley, a “planned hill city”, boasts a private airport, hospital and luxury resorts. It has received investments from various group entities at different points of time.
In 2010, Sahara India Real Estate Corp and Sahara Housing Invest Corp, the two entities which fell foul of Sebi regulations, had invested Rs 6,700 crore in the shares and debentures of Aamby Valley Ltd, the company which owns the property.
Subsequently, the firms told the Supreme Court they had sold these investments to Sahara Credit Cooperative Society and Sahara Q Shop. Company records showed that a month after being released from custody to attend his mother’s funeral in May, Roy had been appointed an additional director of Aamby Valley.