Sahara files contempt petition in Supreme Court against SEBI

Sahara India Pariwar, filed a contempt petition in the Hon'ble Supreme Court against SEBI and prayed to the apex court to punish the concerned officials in SEBI for its conduct.

Sahara claims, SEBI's application seeking deposit of Rs. 62,602 crores by Sahara is absolutely wrong and SEBI has done contempt of court.

Sahara in its petition has accused that, to mislead the apex Court and to cause public outrage against Sahara, SEBI has filled a baseless and unfounded application.

Sahara says that the apex court in its order dated February 6, 2017, had directed that it is concerned with the principal amount and the issue of interest shall be adverted to later but SEBI in utter disregard of the directions has been including interest amount.

Sahara says that, it seems that SEBI has developed certain vested interests to evade the verification exercise on flimsy pretexts.

As on date, an amount of Rs. 22,500 crore is lying in the SEBI-Sahara Refund Account against the principal amount of Rs 24029.73 crores meaning Sahara is supposed to deposit only Rs. 1529 crores towards principal amount.

The only purpose of SEBI's application is to create prejudice and to ensure deterioration of public confidence in the entire Sahara group. It is really not expected from such responsible and respected institution, Sahara said.

SEBI after giving four rounds of advertisements in 152 newspapers in last 8 years across the country received total 19,532 claims and has repaid only Rs. 107 Crore to the esteemed investors.

In its last advertisement that was published in April, 2018, SEBI made it clear that it would not entertain any further claim received after July, 2018. It means that for SEBI there is no more claimant at all. It is a typical case of double payment. Sahara has maintained that as per the directives of the Supreme Court, this amount of Rs. 22,500 Crore will eventually come back to Sahara after due verification.

For more than eight years have passed and yet SEBI has not conducted the exercise of verification of 3.03 crores investors and refund, which is important for the interest of the investors and resolution on SEBI-Sahara dispute.

Instead SEBI lacks the intention to resolve the issue and rather is of perpetuating it by attempting to circumvent the compliance of the directions passed by the Court.

Sahara has revealed that SEBI was required to verify the repayment for which the Indian Postal Department had developed a mechanism at the instance of SEBI, but SEBI abandoned the proposal in March 2013.

In addition to this, 'Smart Chip Ltd.' an agency which was empaneled for the enrolment of Aadhar Card by Govt. of India and is a global leader in bio metric and security technology had submitted a proposal to SEBI on 4th September, 2014 to undertake the verification process but SEBI again did not take any decision on the said proposal. SEBI has incurred an expenditure of around 100 crores out of Sahara's money for making preparation for undertaking the verification process while it has not actually done the verification. It can only be seen as a deliberate disobedience of the direction of the Hon'ble Supreme Court that it is blatant contempt of court.