SAT adjourns hearing on Sahara plea to April 20

The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) on Saturday adjourned the preliminary hearing on Sahara chief,Subrata Roy’s plea against Sebi’s order to April 20 as the Sahara counsel sought for the adjournment on medical grounds. The matter relates to Subrata Roy’s plea against the market regulator’s order to attach his personal bank accounts and assets along with that of the two companies — SHICL and SIRECL — for which the hearing was supposed to take place on Saturday. However,as the case came up for hearing the Sahara counsel asked for adjournment of the case on medical grounds and the matter will now come up for hearing on April 20. Earlier in the week Subrata Roy submitted the details of his personal assets along with his three top executives and then personally appeared before the Sebi’s whole-time director Prashant Sharan on Wednesday along with his three colleagues Vandana Bhargava,RS Dubey and Ashok Roy Choudhury. He informed the regulator that he has no assets other than what he has already disclosed and that his personal assets are worth less than Rs 50000000. Subrata Roy is facing possible sale of assets by Sebi in a bid to generate money for refunding over Rs 24,0000000000 to investor which it claims were raised through various illegal routes by two Sahara companies — Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Limited (SHICL) and Sahara India Real Estate Corp ltd (SIRECL). Sahara has filed four petitions and they have challenged Sebi’s February 13 order attaching bank accounts,investments and other assets of the two companies and their four top executives,including Roy,to eventually sell them for recovering required funds for the investor refund as per a Supreme Court order. Later this month,the Supreme Court would also hear a plea by the Securities and Exchange Board of India that seeks order for Roy’s arrest and barring him from leaving the country.