Sahara gets time till April 13 to sell properties

Satya Prakash

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 28

The Supreme Court today gave time till April 13 to Sahara to sell their properties and deposit Rs 5,092.64 crore towards refund of investors’ money.

A three-judge Bench headed by Justice Dipal Misra also issued notice to Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA), which has acquired 91.65 acres of Sahara land. GDA is to compute and pay compensation to the tune of Rs 1,112.70 crore.

The Bench had on February 8 ordered to attach Sahara group’s prime property Aamby Valley, estimated to be worth Rs 39,000 crore, for the company’s failure to pay over Rs 14,000 crore of the principal amount it owed to its investors.

It had also ordered Sahara to submit by February 20 a list of its properties free from encumbrances for auction to realise over Rs 14,000 crore, the remaining amount the company is supposed to pay to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) towards the money owed to duped investors.

But on Tuesday, the court granted Sahara more time and extended the parole of Subrata Roy after senior counsel Kapil Sibal pleaded for more time to dispose of the company’s properties and deposit the remaining amount.

The list includes Sahara Hospital, Lucknow; Sahara India Sadan Shakespeare Sarani, Kolkata; land at Sohna Road, Gurgaon; land at Najafgarh in Delhi; Sahara City Homes at Indore, Lucknow, Coimbatore and Guna; Sahara States, Bhopal; land for Sahara City Homes at Katni (MP), Haridwar and Pune; land & building at Whiltefield, Bangalore; stake in Orange India Holdings Sarl, Silverstone, London and land at Ghaziabad.

Sahara has already deposited more than Rs 11,000 crore with SEBI and Rs 14,779 crore of the principal amount remains to be paid. Sahara had proposed to pay it by July 2019. On Tuesday, Sibal was pleading for three-month time but the court granted time only till April 13. It posted the matter for further hearing on April 17.

The SC had sent Sahara chief Subrata Roy to Tihar Jail in March 2014 after he failed to appear in response to its summons over non-payment of investors’ money. Roy has been on parole since May last year.