ahara - SEBI case is the case of the issuance of Optionally Fully Convertible Debentures issued by the two companies of Sahara India Pariwar to which Securities and Exchange Board of India had claimed its jurisdiction and objected on why Sahara has not taken permission from it. Sahara has claimed that the said bonds are hybrid product, thus does not come under the jurisdiction of SEBI, instead is governed by Registrar of Companies (ROC) under Ministry of Corporate Affairs, from which the two companies of Sahara has already taken permission and submitted the red herring prospectus with ROC before issuing the bonds.
SEBI in return ordered Sahara's two companies to stop issuing the said bonds and return money to investors. Sahara contested the case in various courts which eventually came to Supreme Court of India. On June 14, 2012, (during the final hearing of the case), the group had provided details of its financials up to April 30, 2012. While the court reserved its order, Sahara claims that it has already paid to 93% of the investors and discharged its OFCD liability to the tune of Rs. 23500 crores and only around Rs. 2260.69 crores are left against which Sahara has already deposited more than Rs. 12,000 crore which has with interest swelled to Rs. 16000 Crore. By August 31, 2012 the date of Supreme Court order, the group repaid majority of its OFCD investors between May the last date of hearing and by August 30, 2012 the final order. Since these repayments have not been taken into consideration, Sahara maintains that any money paid now will obviously mean a double payment towards one liability.
2. Introduction
• Sahara India Pariwar an Indian conglomerate company established in
1978 headquarter in Lucknow
• Diversified business in Finance, Housing & Infrastructures, media &
entertainment, consumer merchandise retail, etc.
• Peak of success in very short period
• Was sponsor of Indian Cricket team, Indian Hockey team and had 42%
stake in Force India F1.
• Once Sahara was listed in top 100 trusted brands of India.
• Second largest employer of India
3. Sahara Scam
• Sahara scam is mainly associated with two companies of Sahara
Group; Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Ltd. (SIRECL) & Sahara
Housing Investment Corporation Ltd. (SHICL)
TERMS TO BE UNDERSTOOD
√ IPO: Initial Public Offering, process through which a company issues
shares to the pubic for the very fist time.
√ DRHP: Draft Red Herring Prospectus is the Biodata of the company
and it contains all information of the company like Financial
Information, Objectives, Promoters and Management details, past
performance, Capital Structure, Issue Information etc. After deeply
analyzing the DRHP, the SEBI decides, whether to grant the permission
to the company or not to get listed.
4. • 30th September 2009, Sahara Prime City which was a part of Sahara Group
submitted DRHP for issue of IPO.
• After analyzing DRHP, SEBI found SIRECL & SHICL has raised fund through illegal
manner.
• After a few days investigation SEBI received a complaint mentioning these
companies used OFCD in wrong way.
*ofcd: Optionally Fully Convertible Debentures, a type of debenture in which the investor has the
option to convert the debenture to equity shares and become the share holder. Company need
permission for issue of OFCD, less than 50 units, permission from ROC and more than 50 form SEBI
• Sahara group raised 20000 Cr funds from 2.5Cr investors using OFCD without
taking permission from SEBI.
• SEBI asked to repay to the investors within 3 months but Sahara Group failed to
do so.
5. • Case was taken into the Supreme Court, ordered SG to send details of investors to
SEBI, 127 trucks were sent to SEBI with all the documents of the ivestors
• After analyzing the documents, SEBI found the documents were incomplete and
unrealistic hence this matter can be of MONEY LAUNDRY