The Union government has requested the Supreme Court to release an amount of ₹5,000 crore deposited by the Sahara group in a separate proceeding pending in the top court for clearing dues of innocent depositors of four Sahara credit cooperative societies who were cheated of their investment.

An application was filed in this regard by the ministry of cooperation in a pending public interest litigation (PIL) filed by one Pinak Pani Mohanty who sought a direction to pay the amount to the depositors who invested in several chit fund companies and Sahara credit firms.

The PIL also sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the Sahara firms and demanded the amount seized so far by the agency, while probing the case against chit-fund companies, to be used to give back to investors.

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Solicitor General Tushar Mehta representing the government of India appeared in the PIL proceeding before a bench of justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar to mention the application filed pursuant to a high-level meeting chaired under the ministry, with representatives from 18 other departments and investigating agencies including Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Serious Frauds Investigation Office, Income Tax, Enforcement Directorate, CBI, ministry of corporate affairs, among others.

The bench agreed to take up the application on Monday while observing, “We are only concerned with the genuineness of depositors and to check whether there is any stay on the release of the amount in question.”

Mehta said that an amount of ₹5,000 crore is sought to be taken from a fund called SEBI-Sahara refund account that came to be formed after the top court in August 2012 directed two Sahara firms – Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Limited (SIRECL) and Sahara Housing India Corporation Limited (SHICL) to refund money to investors in two optionally fully convertible bonds (OFCB) released by them in 2009-10.

Following the order, Sahara invested over ₹15,000 crore and with interest, the amount swelled to ₹24,000 crore and former Supreme Court judge justice (retd) BN Agarwal was appointed to supervise the refund process. Until December 2022, an amount of ₹138 crore had been refunded leaving a balance of ₹23,937 crore lying unutilized.

Mehta told the top court that ₹5,000 crore will be kept with the central registrar, and cooperative societies and the payment made to depositors can be supervised by justice Agarwal as was being done in the Sebi-Sahara refund account.

“We are interested that investors get their money. At the meeting, all agencies discussed this issue and the investigating agencies were told to cooperate and let small depositors get their legitimate dues,” Mehta said.

Some of the depositors led by their counsels claimed that while paying the refund, the agencies should not lose sight of pursuing criminal cases against the accused who swindled public money.

“Eighteen departments of the Government meeting together is itself an achievement,” said the bench. The Supreme Court had been stressing in the past that small investors who invested in chit-fund companies should be refunded their amounts without having to wait for the entire investigation to be over.

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The PIL had claimed that the CBI probe was currently on against 44 chit-fund companies while the criminal proceedings against four Sahara firms were unknown.

The centre’s application pointed out that several proceedings were pending against Sahara firms in different high courts. These firms – Sahara Credit Cooperative Society, Humara India Credit Coop Society, Saharayn e-multipurpose Coop Society, and Star Multipurpose Coop Society– collected money from depositors across multiple states to the tune of ₹86,000 crore. Of this, ₹62,643 crore was deposited in the Aamby Valley project of the Sahara group, besides other Sahara companies.

The centre even demanded the winding up of these four companies and to appoint liquidators under the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002, for ensuring a smooth refund of dues to investors.