SC orders attachment of Sahara's Rs 39k-cr Aamby Valley assets

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered attachment of Sahara’s Aamby Valley properties worth Rs 39,000 crore and warned that it may go for selling them if the group failed to repay the amount to the Sebi.

A three-judge bench presided over by Justice Dipak Misra also directed the Sahara group to furnish within two weeks a list of properties without any encumbrances to enable it to sell those to repay the Rs 14,000 crore remaining principal amount to market regulator Sebi.

“We are not sending you to custody, we don’t want token amount of Rs 600 crore. We now want the list of properties to be sold for recovery of the money,” the bench said, giving two weeks’ time to Sahara group head Subrata Roy.

The court’s order came even as Roy’s counsel, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, submitted that the group had deposited about Rs 600 crore in Sebi’s account.

The counsel also submitted that the group would clear the principal remaining amount by the end of July, 2019.

Advocate Pratap Venugopal, appearing for Sebi, as well as amicus curiae, senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, submitted that the group owned property at Aamby Valley City in Pune, Maharashtra which was sufficient for realisation of the whole amount.

Sebi’s counsel insisted that the property should be attached so that Roy and others would make all efforts to deposit the amount.