Hundreds of people who invested in four cooperatives run by the Sahara group protested in Delhi on February 1 against the government’s failure to refund the deposits.
The small time depositors had come from several parts of the country to protest at Jantar Mantar.
The protesters said the portal launched by Union Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah in July 2023 to refund the money of investors, majority of them from rural and semi-urban areas across 26 States, had been a non-starter. Most claims are rejected on the grounds of “deficiency,” the investors said.
The deficiency is primarily on account of mismatch between the claims and the data of Sahara investors available on the Ministry’s portal. The maximum refund that can be claimed has been capped at ₹10,000, irrespective of the total amount invested.
Kuldeep Jain, a small-time businessman from Nowgong, Madhya Pradesh, said that despite uploading all the documents on the portal his claim was rejected.
Sahara investors protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on February 01, 2024. | Photo Credit: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap
“My daughter-in-law is fighting cancer. I need the refund. We had to even pay bribe to people at the Common Services Centre [CSC] to upload the documents. I had invested ₹10 lakh in Sahara, have not received even a penny,” Mr. Jain said.
Ram Dulare, a sanitation worker from Delhi, said he had invested ₹2.5 lakh in the Sahara cooperatives six years ago but his claim was rejected on the portal.
Pikku Kumar from Mokama, Bihar said the portal was a fraud done with the people. “This government only works for the industrialists. They waive off their loans but when it comes to people they do nothing,” Mr. Kumar, who was an agent for Sahara, said.
Chandrashekhar, a grocery store owner from Telangana, said he had applied on the portal but did not get even ₹10,000 as refund.
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On July 18, 2023, the Central government set up the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies (CRCS) portal — mocrefund.crcs.gov.in — for small investors in four cooperatives — Sahara Credit Cooperative Society Limited, Saharayn Universal Multipurpose Society Limited, Humara India Credit Cooperative Society Limited, and Stars Multipurpose Cooperative Society Limited. These were registered from March 2010 to January 2014, in Lucknow, Bhopal, Hyderabad, and Kolkata, under the provisions of the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002.
The investors got the promised returns, around 7%-11% interest on principal amount for the first few years. From 2017-2018 onwards the returns stopped.
The Supreme Court in 2012 ordered Sahara to deposit ₹25,000 crore in the “Sahara-SEBI Refund Account” to refund the high-net worth investors of two other companies — the Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Limited (SIRECL) and Sahara Housing India Corporation Limited (SHICL). Most high-net investors never showed up to claim the money.
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The corpus of ₹24,000 crore still lies unused.
In 2023, the Ministry of Cooperation filed a petition in this regard before the Supreme Court seeking ₹5,000 crore from the unused corpus of the Sahara-SEBI refund account to refund the small-time depositors.
On December 31, the Ministry said in a statement that the process of first phase payment started from August 4, 2023 and till December 11, claims for ₹8,1291.50 crore were received on the portal from 3.35 crore depositors. An amount of ₹215 crore has been released to 2,36,066 depositors, the Ministry said.
On January 17, Mr. Shah said the portal had disbursed ₹241 crore to 2.5 lakh investors so far.
