The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) should come out with a mechanism to verify the genuineness of investors, who had invested in the Sahara group, and start refunding money to them, the Supreme Court said.
A bench of justices K. S. Radhakrishnan and J. S. Khehar also sought an affidavit detailing their assets from Sahara India Real Estate Corp Ltd. (SIREC) and Sahara India Housing Investment Corp Ltd. (SHIC), the two companies in which the investors had put in their money, and are facing property attachment proceedings in the case. The court said that SEBI should start making payments to the investors whose genuineness had been verified. The bench added that if any investor was not found to be genuine, the same must be put to the Sahara group for verification.
The court has fixed July 17 for hearing on SEBI’s plea for initiating contempt proceedings against the two companies, its directors, and Sahara group chief Subrata Roy for not obeying its August 31 orders. Meanwhile, in a statement, Sahara’s advocate Keshav Mohan said that during the hearing, they also pointed out that modalities for such a verification process needed to be worked out for implementation of the order.
On May 2, the apex court had stayed the proceedings on pleas filed by the Sahara group and Mr. Roy in the tribunal and the high court.
Earlier, the bench had accused the Sahara group and Mr. Roy of “ >manipulating courts ” by approaching different forums for relief.
