Court issues warrant against Sahara India Chairman Subrato Roy

New Delhi, Jan 24 (PTI) A court here today issued abailable warrant against Subrato Roy, Chairman of Sahara IndiaGroup, for allegedly duping 25,000 investors to the tune of Rs250 crore in a proposed housing project by his company sayingthere was enough prima facie material to proceed against him.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vinod Yadav took theaction against Roy and four other company officials bydirecting the Delhi Police to execute the warrant againstthem by February 9.

The court passed its order after conducting an inquiryand recording the testimony of complainant Neeraj Pandey andhis wife Beena who alleged they were not allotted a flat evenafter investing over Rs one lakh in the proposed housingproject ''Sahara Swaran Yojana'' of the company in the NationalCapital Region in 2003.

"It is also apparent that false promises were held outto the general public through brochures/booklets which primafacie amounts to forging the documents. In my opinion, thereis prima facie enough material on record to proceed againstthem for offences punishable under Sections 420 (cheating),468 (forgery), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 120B(conspiracy) of the IPC," the CMM said.

Pandey''s advocate Ashutosh Bhardwaj alleged the companyhad fraudulently collected Rs 250 crore from 25,000 investorswith the false promise of alloting a flat in the project whichnever took off.

He also alleged the company had illegally routed themoney collected from investors for the housing project toother ventures.

The company had launched the scheme ''Sahara SwarnYojna'' for developing 217 townships all over the country,including the NCR region, he said.

In the complaint filed on April 12, 2009, it wasalleged that despite the promise made in 2003, no progress wasmade in its project in the NCR region and the company, aftersix years, offered to return Rs 1.58 lakh.

Pandey approached the court seeking action against thecompany and its officials after the police did not act on hiscomplaint alleging cheating, forgery and criminalintimidation.

"It is apparent that till date no allotment has beenmade to the complainant. It is also apparent that even thesite of the township has not been disclosed to him, givingrise to the presumption that despite collecting money from theproposed allottee, the township has not been established," thecourt said.