New SC Bench to hear SEBI-Sahara refund case

A new Supreme Court Bench on Thursday will hear the SEBI-Sahara refund case.

A three Bench constituting of former chief justice of India Thirath Singh Thakur, and Justices Ranjan Gogoi and A K Sikri was hearing the case.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Sahara Group and its chief Subrata Roy, had raised the issue since CJI Thakur had demitted office on January 3.

Sahara has, so far, returned a total of Rs 18,000 crores to its investors till now.

The bench, initially, had asked Roy to deposit Rs 1,000 crore with market regulator SEBI in two months or it will appoint a receiver, but later reduced the money to be deposited to Rs 600 crore till February 6, 2017.

Market regulator Sebi had earlier said that Sahara Group was liable to pay Rs 37,000 crore with interest, of which the principal amount payable was Rs 24,000 crore.

Sahara has already paid Rs 10,918 crore out of Rs 24,029 crore raised from investors, Sebi had said.

The Sahara chief was sent to jail on May 4, 2014, for his failure to comply with 2012 order directing him to return investor's Rs. 17,600 crores with 15 percent interest that his two companies Sahara India Real Estate Corp Ltd and Sahara Housing Finance Corp Ltd had raised through optionally fully convertible debentures (OFCD) in 2007 and 2008.

Roy has been directly charged in the case pertaining to non-refund of nearly Rs 20,000 crores to investor.