SC stays proceedings pending before SAT,HC in Sahara case

Four cases are pending before SAT,one before Allahabad HC. The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed all the proceedings pending before the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) and the Allahabad High Court in connection with the failure of Sahara Group in refunding Rs 24,0000000000 to investors. The court also sought a response from the Group as to why not all the matters,relating to its August 2012 judgement on directing two Sahara companies to repay the investors,should be heard exclusively by the apex court. Lawyers for Sahara Group,however,expressed their resistance,contending these matters involved factual disputes that should be left to be adjudged by SAT. The lawyers said that taking away SAT’s jurisdiction would deprive Sahara of their first right to appeal against the orders of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) order. They also challenged the regulator’s transfer application on technical grounds. A bench led by Justice KS Radhakrishnan,however,snubbed the argument,saying “We are doing it suo motu. Since the matter is before us and it relates to our judgement,we will decide what to do. We are staying proceedings elsewhere.” It has asked the Group to respond by Wednesday. There are four cases pending before SAT while one petition is before the HC. These proceedings have been initiated by Sahara Group over Sebi’s orders relating to rejection of documents pertaining to investors and attachment orders against Group promoter Subrata Roy,its directors and another Sahara company. Meanwhile,Sahara also lodged its grievance against a certain part of the judgement,which had doubted names like ‘Kalawati’ and ‘Haridwar’ appearing multiple times in the list of investors. It said that the bench did not give it opportunities to explain such repetitions before delivering the verdict. The court,however,told Sahara that if it had objections to the judgement,the remedy was to file a review petition. The Group also challenged making Roy a party to the proceedings,arguing he was not associated with the two Sahara firms and the court also did not pass order against him. Sebi,however,pointed that Roy had claimed before it that his personal assets were worth around Rs 30000000 but in documentation before a nationalised bank,he claimed his assets to be more than Rs 4,0000000000. It further pointed that Sahara records showed the name ‘Anirudh Singh,son of Hukum Singh’ appearing 1,433 times on the list.