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Sahara to SEBI: Expedite investor verification, ads won't help

Hitting back at Sebi, embattled Sahara group today said issuance of advertisements would not help the regulator reach out to the investors spread across remote parts of the country and offered its help in verifying 95 per cent bondholders it claims to have already refunded. 

"The proof of the pudding is in eating. Sahara is confident that verification will prove not only the existence of the investors but also Sahara will get all its money which is with Sebi," the group said in a statement.

This follows comments made by Sebi's Whole-Time Member S Raman yesterday on the sidelines of a conference in Mumbai, where he wondered why not many claimants were coming forward to get back the money in the high-profile Sahara case.

"As far as Sahara is concerned, we have a decent amount of money but not many claimants. That is a question mark, as to why there are no claimants despite the fact that we have made multiple advertisements seeking applications to pay the money," he had said.

Terming his comments as "misguiding and irresponsible", Sahara accused Sebi of indulging in 'media trial' on Sahara- Sebi matter when the case was 'sub-judice'.

It said the regulator was not finding many claimants because "Sebi in four years has not initiated on-ground verification of the investors".

The group further said that Sebi has issued four newspaper advertisements directed towards only those investors who have yet to get refund. But, "the majority 95 per cent who have already got back their money are neither addressed in these advertisements nor will they anyway, bother to reply to Sebi (even if asked) as they have already got their money refunded from Sahara."

"Besides, it is imperative to understand that almost entire majority of Sahara investors (including the remaining 5 per cent investors) reside in the remote parts of rural India and are mostly illiterate or barely literate.

"Many of them live in mud houses, hutments and even slums, where there are no street names or house numbers (as there are no municipalities in small villages to allot house numbers, etc). Therefore, instead of merely issuing advertisements, a more serious and detailed approach should be adopted by Sebi to reach out to our investors," it said.

The group further said "Sahara with its more than 12 lakh workers has an unparalleled reach to investors".

Citing the Supreme Court order that Sebi can take help of Sahara for verification of investors, the group said, "It is not possible to reach out to these small investors and Sahara is always ready to assist Sebi in reaching out to the aforesaid investors."

Sahara is engaged in a long-running dispute with the Sebi over schemes involving raising of funds from public through certain bonds and the group was asked to return thousands of crores along with interest to the investors through the regulator.

"The entire desire of ours is to distribute as much money as possible," Raman had said.

Reacting to Raman's comments about Sahara giving truckloads of documents not connected to one another and the regulator undertaking the gargantuan task of sifting through those, Sahara said the group was asked to send all the document pertaining to 3 crore investors to Sebi in 10 days.

"The OFCD (bonds through which money was raised) was not closed and in fact in process of refund to a large number of investors was on. In this scenario many of the document were at our head office while a big number of documents were at our more than 4,000 branches.

"Keeping in mind the time limit of 10 days, we collected all the original documents as it is from all our offices across India and had sent the same to Sebi is boxes through 127 trucks," Sahara said in a detailed statement.

Stating that there was no fault on Sahara's part, it further said, "The documents of 3 crore investors cannot be handful and quite understandably will be huge in number because it contains the proofs of repayments of three crore investors - original repayment vouchers, receipts, KYC and other relevant documents.”

"Further, Sahara had in fact offered Sebi to help in the collation of documents and stationed its 50 officials in Sebi's Mumbai office to assist the market regulator. We were even ready to increase the number of officials to many hundred, but Sebi has refused to take their help. "Moreover, Sebi refused to take around 25 per cent of the documents which are still lying in our warehouses in Mumbai," it added.

It further accused Sebi of not having made "any serious effort" to start the verification even after two years of having claimed to have successfully organized the documents.

It further asserted that verification of "documented proofs" provided by Sahara would prove that all its "investors actually exist".

The group said the amount deposited so far with Sebi is more than Rs 14,000 crore, including interest earned, and recently it has given additional Rs 500 crore, though Sebi has refunded only Rs 55 crore.

Limits of judicial activism

Limits of judicial activism

In many cases, the arrangements being made by the judiciary and after reading comments on the Indian people wonder why most of the time we show the activation of the judges why constrained to. Then Whether it was the 2G scam are mining scam or the coal mines in the allocation of the storm - the scandals, all these cases, monitoring the work of the Supreme Court in an important and active role discharge, and that you know amenities. Its biggest advantage was that civil society has realized that corruption can be controlled or can be prevented. In recent times some of the top court orders or moves naturally expressed satisfaction with the country's many reviewers are shocked.

The Supreme Court in a case of fraud chairman of Samsung Electronics recently ordered to appear before a Ghaziabad court. The reason no one can ask the court to summon the chairman of Samsung was necessary? Although Samsung has officially expressed confidence that the Indian court considers their innocence and finally justice will be done with them. Probably we have a very large company, Global Chairman're pulling too much into a single case. In the case before the court in India of any unnecessary muscle is not that great.

Being true fan of cricket betting scandal in IPL, BCCI about getting my eye on developments. N is the most important thing is that in this case. Srinivasan dogma to be followed over the investigation. Given the betting controversy, the Supreme Court said Srinivasan not only to quit, but Sunil Gavaskar took over for the 7th IPL also ordered. In this context it is important that anyone who raised their voices in favor of Srinivasan. BCCI Here we look at this as a state under the provisions of the Constitution or a major deletion, consider what the organization would be justifiable? Can anyone suggest the name of the court chief? In fact, it is not the job of elected representatives choose their chief? After all, why Gavaskar's name was suggested? Would not it reasonable that the court investigation against Srinivasan and get a clean chit to the work of the appointment of an interim administrator leaves to the discretion of the Board?

I am not a fan of Srinivasan same way about Subrata Roy Sahara India chief can not give too much information. बैंक सुविधा से महरूम इस वर्ग के पास सहारा के एजेंटों ने वक्त-बेवक्त पहुंचकर उनसे उनकी बचत जमा की और गाहे-बगाहे कभी शादी, बच्चों की शिक्षा, अपने लघु व्यवसायों के विस्तार तो कभी पक्के घरों के निर्माण आदि कायरें के लिए उन्हें धन मुहैया made. This task could not be completed KYC Stren some reasons why, in spite of the Sahara has better performance than other financial institutions. Disorders that may be left, but could be improved through the system. You can not close the resort. Subrata Roy, sent to jail by the Supreme Court for bail and asked to deposit Rs ten thousand crores. Their lawyers are still argue that it is unfair. Lawyers are also saying that the judges concerned should withdraw from the case because they do not expect fairness from them. It's certainly not the best position to judge the fairness of judges and lawyers do not trust. Justice VR Krishna Iyer makes me miss the buzz word - not Bell prison.

Courts under judicial activism, no doubt, have the right to interpret or apply the law, but they have no right to make laws or changing them. Similarly, during the days have passed when the hearing was postponed judges laughed unusual observations. Alert the media takes them to wrest away the sensational headlines. A few comments would not have a direct connection with the case. For example, a judge says - Please do not test my patience. There is no mention of such comments in the final results, but the next day the headlines.

In the absence of proper governance or policy or widespread frustration over inaction on the part of the courts hope-filled eyes everyone sees that they will defend democracy. But we all need to ensure that justice is not only to be self-communion, but he would also have seen the stock.

[Author Sudip Bandyopadhyay, president of Destimni Security]

SAHARA - SEBI: THE MURDEROUS POUND OF FLESH

As funny as it may appear but the Sahara Sebi issue strangely reminds me of

Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice”. For those who did not comprehend the

context, I’ll draw the parallel for you. SEBI disguised as the vindictive,

devious Shylock, drags Antonio (in this case Sahara) to reinforce his absurd

claim to Antonio’s 1 pound of flesh (interestingly the pound of flesh here

refers to the approximately 20,000 crores). As readers, we all knew that

Shylock was nothing short of killing Antonio in the court of law. A

befitting analogy to the Sahara Sebi dispute.

As preposterous as the title may sound, the witch hunt against the Sahara

supremo, Subrata Roy Sahara, is inches away of being an ill intentioned

corporate honour killing in progress by the highest authorities perched in

position of power and clout in India. A vicious attempt to execute an entire

corporate just to see it go on its knees bleeding, only to entertain the

prejudicial whims of a few.

Before this takes any form of further elaboration, an immediate look at the

economic quicksand we as an economy are in may add some perspective to what

you all will feed your minds with further down this piece. On one hand,

unemployment, fiscal deficits, an all time low in entrepreneurship and

inflation are some of the fiends we hope to fight off in the ongoing

elections. The gap between the haves and the have nots only deepens. On the

other hand, we have a senseless, irrational litigation running in the courts

against Sahara at the behest of SEBI, which until now has served absolutely

no purpose, lacks any grain of logic or fiscal sensibility and appears to be

making a mockery of our judicial system.

The Supreme Court epitomizes the judicial soul of the country.  An extremely

powerful entity that has the privilege and the clout of imparting judicial

discourse and lending sensibility in much senseless times we live in. What

does not make sense is when these minds of logic and intellect facilitate in

pronouncing judgement and infer, rather impose, guilt upon Sahara without

any grain of proof and assist an absurd claim of a regulator to a pound of

flesh that a) only reveals the regulator’s prejudicial & draconian approach

towards fiscal regulation in a free democratic country and b) severely

impairs the business sensibilities and economics of growth and development.

Subrata Roy, perhaps is the only corporate leader who comes from the region

of UP, Bihar, Rajasthan or MP. He can be attributed to have brought UP onto

the map of corporate leadership apart from its pre-existing electoral might

that UP is already known for. He has infact spawned employment for thousands

of people, catalyzed entrepreneurs, contributed massively to state revenues

and GDP and heavily fuelled CSR initiatives not just at a state but at a

national level too. He has gifted the poor with economic empowerment and

generated a fiscal device of investment and savings for these have nots.

SEBI’s claims about Sahara’s business practices hold no metal & more

dangerously are premised on an assumption. Having failed to verify the

thousands of documents and the veracity of the Sahara investors, SEBI has

assumed to put the blame of its malfunction on an assumption that these

investors are “fictitious”. This coming from the national regulator is an

extremely hazardous premise. How can a regulator be so negligent and

irrational in hurling such grave allegations when they themselves have not

fulfilled the obligations of due diligence that is pending at their end.

Having failed to do so, they have not only declared a war against a

corporate whose business, in the absence of any proof, stands absolutely

legitimate but have also cloaked their incompetency by pronouncing Sahara

guilty. Again, no proof of that too!

Assumptions are dangerous toys in the hands of a mindless child here. It is

the knife with which SEBI intends of extract its pound of flesh. For moment

here, let’s walk into the dangerous premise of that assumption and assume

that SEBI is granted its wish. It takes its pound of flesh of Sahara. Sahara

compromises and pays the disputed amount to SEBI. Now, having done that what

I would really like to know is how does SEBI plans to distribute this money

amongst the investors, who it in the first place, according to SEBI, were

fictitious? More so, if even we assume that by some work of miracle they do

locate these investors, shoves the money down their throats which, to begin

with, these depositors intended to keep invested, where do these depositors

take this money? This question is important because these investors are

daily rickshaw pullers, small roadside vendors and daily wage earners who

probably do not hold a 7 vault safe in their houses. If they have permanent

houses in the first place is also dubious. They are not account holders and

definitely lurking around the poverty line. Has SEBI worked on an alternate

investment plan for these investors if they wish to continue investing their

money? How does SEBI plans to ensure the financial health, whatever little

they may have? For future where do these small depositors go for their

savings because the only avenue they had as Sahara is already standing with

more than its pound of flesh missing and hemorrhaging to death?

A regulator and especially the courts cannot drop the burden of substantial

proof, moral & social obligations of their assessments and most certainly

cannot entertain prejudicial whims and eccentricities. Their roles have been

carved and evolved in a democratic society only to protect, serve and

nurture. Witch hunts and executions have no room where “Where words come out

from the depth of truth, Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards

perfection, Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way, Into the

dreary desert sand of dead habit...”. Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone