Apex court to hear Sahara plea on investors' money Monday

The Supreme Court said that it would hear Monday the petition by two real estate companies of the Sahara Group challenging the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) rejecting their plea to direct its registrar to accept its pay order of Rs.5,120 crore.

The money was to be deposited with market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) towards the payment of investors' deposits by Nov 30. A bench of Chief Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice J.Chelameswar directed the listing of the matter Monday, after senior counsel Gopal Subrahmaniam mentioned Sahara's plea before it Friday.

The Sahara India Real Estate Corporation and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Ltd. had moved the SAT seeking direction to its registrar to accept their pay order of Rs.5,120 crore towards payment of investors' money, which these two companies had mopped up through optionally fully convertible debentures.

Sahara had contended this was the total amount that was payable to refund the investors who had invested in OFCD. SAT rejected Sahara's plea on Thursday.
The Sahara real estate companies were directed by the Supreme Court in August to refund the investors' money.

As Subramaniam mentioned the matter, counsel Prashant Bhushan told the court that the amount to be refunded by the Sahara real estate companies was Rs.24,000 crore.

The apex court's Aug 31 verdict directed the companies to return to investors Rs.17,400 crore with 15 percent interest that it had mopped up through the debentures in 2008 and 2009. The court had said that the refund would be done "within a period of three months from today, which shall be deposited in a nationalized bank bearing maximum rate of interest".

The court had appointed Justice B.N. Agarwal, former apex court judge, to "oversee whether directions issued by this Court are properly and effectively complied with by the SEBI (WTM) from the date of this order".