SC issues notice to Sahara on Sebi plea to appoint receiver for asset sale

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Sahara group on the plea of Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to appoint a court receiver to dispose off the group's properties and recover arrears of around Rs 37,000 crore.

The development happened on a day when Sahara claimed that it signed Rs 34,360-crore deal with British Virgin Islands-based company, Helvetia Group, to meet its legal obligations and raked up afresh the issue of "wrongful" incarceration of chairman Subrata Roy.

The Helvetia Group will also facilitate a Rs 5,000-crore bank guarantee which stands in the way of Roy's release, Sahara told the court.

A loan of Rs 5,000 crore will come in by October 15, after Helvetia completes its due diligence of the hotels the Sahara group owns abroad, the company said. Apart from meeting the immediate legal obligations, the rest of the amount will be used to redevelop its flagship project, Amby Valley, it claimed.

An agreement to this effect was signed on September 7, the company told a bench comprising Justices TS Thakur, Anil R Dave and AK Sikri.

The claim did not deter the top court, which has been dealing with the issue since 2012, from issuing notice on Sebi's plea to have a receiver appointed to sell off Sahara's properties. "We will release you the day we appoint a receiver," the bench said.

The court listed the case again after six weeks when it will re-examine if the funds Sahara claimed would come through.

The market regulator, Sebi urged the court to appoint a receiver and sell off Amby Valley, estimated to be worth more than Rs 1,00,000 crore, to recover all dues from Sahara, a plea that was vehemently resisted by the company's lawyers.

The Helvetia group is owned by Qatari nationals settled now in the UK. The loan will be a charge on the hotels the Sahara group owns abroad.

"The three hotels will be encumbered and the money utilised to develop Amby Valley," Sahara lead lawyer Kapil Sibal told the court. He said in the first leg of the complicated transaction, the group would release $750 million (Rs 5,535 crore) to Sahara for a bank guarantee that would free Roy from Tihar.

Roy has been in jail since March 4, 2014, when he marched off from court straight to Tihar for failing to turn up in court on an ordered date to personally explain the group's failure to pay up around Rs 20,000 crore to market regulator Sebi to be paid off to investors in two group schemes. The latest figure includes interest as well. Sahara claims that it has paid most of its investors.

"What has happened in this case has never happened in the history of this court. What has happened is unbelieva ble," Sibal said. "I can demonstrate from papers that Sahara has so far paid off Rs 21,000 crore," he told the court.

"He's in jail. He shouldn't be," Sibal said, urging the court to extend the special facilities which would entitle Roy access to computers and phones and videoconferencing facilities in a special zone inside Tihar to allow him to negotiate these financial deals.

The top court admitted that it was "conscious of the fact that a person was inside" and was therefore hearing the case whenever Sahara had demanded a hearing, but expressed its inability to go "against what has already happened".

"We understand your problems," Justice Thakur said.