Sahara says it has returned Rs 3,226 cr, promises to pay off all depositors

Promising that every investor will be repaid, the official said in the last 10 years the group has paid maturity payment of a massive Rs 1.4 trillion to its 57.6 million investors

The Sahara group has broken its silence and said it re-paid Rs 3,226 crore in the last 75 days to its depositors. and said it would repay every depositor. “Out of the total amount paid, only 2.18 per cent payment were made against requests made by different people to us for premature payments etc., and they all have been paid. The rest was paid on maturity of their term,” said a top executive of the group.

Promising that every investor would be repaid, the official said, in the past 10 years, the group paid maturity payment of a massive Rs 1.4 trillion to its 57.6 million investors.  “Of this, only 40 per cent cases are of reinvestment and rest of the investors have been paid in full,” the executive said.

The present liquidity tightening is due to the embargo imposed for the past eight years by the Supreme Court, and any money generated through selling or mortgaging the assets of the entire group (including co-operatives) or from joint ventures will be deposited in the Sahara-Sebi account, according to the directives of Supreme Court, the official said. 

“Of this, we cannot use even a single rupee for organisational work, and not even for repayment to the investors,” the official said.

On the Sebi-Sahara fund, the official said, till date, Rs 22,000 crore, including interest, had been deposited in the Sahara-Sebi account, whereas, despite giving four rounds of ads in 154 papers in the past eight years, the Sebi has repaid only Rs 106 crore to the investors. In its last ad, published a year ago, the Sebi made it clear it would not entertain any further claims. 

“The only reason that the Sebi didn’t receive any further claim was that Sahara Group had already repaid to its investors. According to the directives of the  Supreme Court, this amount of Rs 22,000 crore will come back to Sahara after due verification,” he said.

“’The Sahara India Pariwar has assets three times its liability. Therefore, every investor should be rest assured regarding their repayment,” the official said.