Sahara v. SEBI- Sahara Deposits Rs. 3,000 crore with SEBI, Fali Nariman refuses to be Amicus Curiae

Sahara has finally started complying with the Supreme Court order and has deposited 3,007-crore with market regular SEBI. The amount was reportedly collected from various bank accounts and sale of bonds. With Rs. 5,127-crore already deposited in 2012, the total amount deposited is now Rs 8,127-crore.

In the beginning of this month, the new bench comprising of Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice A.K. Sikri modified the March 4^th order restricting sale of property, to raise the amount for his interim bail. While still continuing with Subrata Roy’s custody, the court had on June 4 referred the case to a three-judge bench and appointed senior advocate Fali S Nariman as the amicus curiae.  However, according to the TOI report, Nariman has turned down the proposal. The Court would now consider other options for the position of amicus curiae.

Pursuant to this order, Sahara group had sold approximately 4.21 lakh square metres of land belonging to its residential scheme ‘Sahara City’ in Ahmedabad to city-based developers for a sum of Rs 464 crore.

Sahara was trying to free its Chief Subarata Roy and three Directors from a very long time. In March 2014, an order was passed by the apex court for their granting interim bail, on the condition that they deposit Rs.10, 000-crores. Out of this a sum of Rs.5,000-crores had to be deposited in cash before this Court while the balance amount of Rs.5000-crores had to be secured by a bank guarantee of a nationalized bank, furnished in favor of the SEBI. Read the Live Law story here.

Instead of complying with this order, Roy had filed writ petitions challenging the validity of the order. The petitions were heard by a bench comprising of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and J.S. Khehar, and were subsequently dismissed. This Bench had pronounced the judgment which had lengthened the Chief’s stay under custody. It had rejected his plea challenging its March 4 order detaining him for not abiding by the order to return investors money by steering it through SEBI. Justice Khehar in this judgment had said, “We won’t allow Bench Hunting, Bench-Hopping or Bench Avoiding” Read the Live Law story here.

After Justice Khehar’s sudden recusal from the case and Justice Radhakrishnan’s retirement, the new Bench was constituted.

Read more news about the Sahara case here

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