The Supreme Court has ordered the release of Rs 5,000 crore from the amount deposited with market regulator SEBI to pay the dues of depositors of the cooperative societies of the Sahara Group. The Supreme Court granted permission accepting the request of the Center.
If you are an investor who has invested in the Sahara Group, then this news is for you. In fact, the Supreme Court has ordered the release of Rs 5,000 crore from the amount deposited with the market regulator SEBI to pay the dues of the depositors of the cooperative societies of the Sahara Group. A bench of Justice Suryakant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi approved the application filed by the Central Government in which it was requested to pay the depositors from the amount kept in the SEBI-Sahara refund account. The Supreme Court accepted the request of the Center and granted permission. Along with this, the apex court has extended the time period for distribution of the amount released to the investors till December 31, 2026.
Refusal to give time to SEBI
However, later the advocate appearing for SEBI urged the bench to postpone the order till Monday and give time to obtain instructions from the competent authority and inform the court. However, the apex court refused to grant time or postpone its order. The court said that the transfer of money will be done within 1 week under the supervision of former Supreme Court judge Justice R. Subhash Reddy and in the manner mentioned in the March, 2023 order of the apex court.
The Supreme Court gave this order while considering the application filed by the Central Government in a public interest litigation filed by a person named Pinak Pani Mohanty. In his petition, Mohanty has demanded an order for payment to the investors of chit fund companies and Sahara credit firms.
What did the Central Government say?
The Central Government told the Supreme Court that the amount released earlier could not be distributed to the depositors within the stipulated time limit and interest accrued on it. The court was told that the total amount claimed so far was Rs 1,13,504.124 crore.
