In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court, on the petition of the ministry of cooperation, has ordered a payout from the Sahara-SEBI refund account to about 10 crore investors in four Sahara Group cooperative societies.
Sahara Group’s four societies – Sahara Credit Cooperative Society, Saharayan Universal Multipurpose Society, Humara India Credit Cooperative Society and Stars Multipurpose Cooperative Society, were registered under the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002, between March 2010 and January 2014. A large number of complaints were received from across the country regarding non-payment of deposits to the depositors of these cooperative societies. The ministry of cooperation digitized about 1.22 lakh claims received from the depositors and sent them to these committees for payment, but the committees did not take necessary action in this regard.
As per the directions of the Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation, Amit Shah, the ministry of cooperation took up the matter on priority and held several meetings with the department of economic affairs, department of revenue, SEBI, SFIO and ED, etc. The Ministry filed a petition in this regard before the Supreme Court for status report and resolution of the matter. It was requested to the Supreme Court that Rs 50 billion from the Sahara-SEBI Refund Account can be used to pay depositors of the four co-operative societies of the Sahara Group.
The Supreme Court has ordered that out of the balance amount in the Sahara-SEBI Refund Account, Rs50 billion to be transferred to the Central Registrar for refund to the investors of Cooperative Societies of Sahara Group. Under the supervision of the Supreme Court-appointed Retired judge R. Subhash Reddy and with the assistance of Gaurav Agarwal, Advocate, the Central Registrar will complete the payment process in 9 months. The Ministry of Cooperation, under the supervision of RK Subhash Reddy, will soon start the process of payment to the legitimate investors of cooperative societies of Sahara Group through a proper transparent mechanism, which will provide relief to crores of investors and their families.
