Sebi refunds Rs. 129 cr to Sahara investors

Capital markets regulator Sebi has managed to refund Rs 129 crore to investors of two Sahara companies in nearly nine years after being assigned the task by the Supreme Court, while the amount deposited in specially-opened bank accounts for the repayment purpose has swelled to over Rs 23,000 crore, according to the latest disclosure made by the regulator.

In the absence of claims from a large majority of the bondholders of the two Sahara companies, which were asked to return the money to nearly 3 crore investors along with interest in August 2012 through a Supreme Court order, the total amount refunded by Sebi rose by just about Rs 14 crore during the last fiscal, 2020-21, while the balance in Sebi-Sahara refund accounts rose by over Rs 1,400 crore during the year. In its latest annual report, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said that it received 19,616 applications as of March 31, 2021, involving total refund claims of nearly Rs 81.6 crore. Of this, it has issued refunds in 16,909 cases (Rs 129 crore, including Rs 66.35 crore principal and Rs 62.34 crore interest), while 483 applications (involving over Rs 2.3 crore) have been referred back to investors for addressing discrepancies. While seven applications have been put in the disputed category, 332 applications are pending with Sahara, 122 are pending with Sebi and 2,487 cases have been closed for reasons including no response from investors and absence of records), the regulator said. In its previous update, Sebi had put the total amount refunded by it as of March 31, 2020 at Rs 115.2 crore (concerning 15,140 applications). The number of disputed cases at that time was much higher at 229, while the count of closed cases was lower at 1,688. Sebi further said pursuant to various orders passed by the Supreme Court and the attachment orders passed by the regulator, an aggregate amount of Rs 15,473 crore has been recovered by it as of March 31, 2021. "These amounts along with interest earned on them after providing for making refunds to the bondholders have been deposited in various Nationalized Banks in terms of the judgment dated August 31, 2012 of the Supreme Court. As of March 31, 2021, the total amount deposited in these banks is Rs 23,191 crore," Sebi said. This amount stood at Rs 21,770.70 crore as of March 31, 2020. Reacting to the latest update from Sebi, the Sahara group said as per its own estimate the money deposited in the Sahara-Sebi account including interest should be around Rs 25,000 crore and alleged that Sebi is "unreasonably holding Rs 25,000 crore money of Sahara and its investors". Referring to various rounds of newspaper advertisements given by Sebi over the years to invite refund claims, Sahara said the regulator had made it clear in the last advertisement that it would not entertain any further claim received after July 2018.