SEBI withdraws NBW against Sahara chief

Mumbai: The special Security Exchange Board of India (SEBI) court on Friday withdrew a non-bailable warrant against Sahara India Pariwar chief Subrata Roy and three directors of his company in the case filed by SEBI for not listing their two companies in the stock market and collecting a huge sum of money from investors. The court also asked them to furnish fresh bail bonds of Rs 2 lakh each while withdrawing the warrant.

On Friday, the court asked Roy and his directors, Vandana Bhargava, Ravishankar Dubey and Ashok Roy Choudhary, to furnish an undertaking that henceforth they would attend court proceedings regularly.

In 2012, SEBI had filed case against Sahara Real Estate Corporation and Sahara Housing Investment as their promoter, Roy, and three directors had allegedly collected money from more than three crore investors without listing the securities on the stock exchange.

According to SEBI, in the year 2009 the company had issue ‘optional fully convertible debentures’ to the public under the garb of private placement. This is violation of SEBI Act.

SEBI lawyer Omprakash Jha said the company did not specify the amount that it had collected from investors. It is estimated that it worked out to around Rs 24,000 crore, he said. According to the SEBI, maximum punishment under the Act is ten years.

When the case was registered in the court, it issued various notices to the Roy and the three directors but they never responded. Finally, on March 31 the court issued a non-bailable warrant against them. Meanwhile, instead of replying to notices, Roy went to the high court where they were told that they would have to approach a special court before May 3. The SEBI court on Friday kept the matter for the further hearing on May 18.