Sahara offers Rs 22,500 cr bank guarantees; help to Sebi

New Delhi, Mar 4: Accused of persistent non- compliance, Saharas today offered Sebi fresh bank guarantees for Rs 22,500 crore and help in verifying investors including those the group claims to have already refunded.

Sahara said it can "depute hundreds of competent workers" to assist Sebi in collating the documents and other information for verification of documents, a bulk of which it has already submitted and some more it has offered to submit.

They have further contended that if the verification process throws out any investor who is not "genuine" or if there are fictitious accounts, then the group would deposit the amount attributable to such investors to the Government of India "in cash through Sebi within a period of 30 days". This came on a day when Sahara chief Subrata Roy was brought by police to appear before the Supreme Court.

Raising an emotional pitch, the group asked the Supreme Court to accept the offer "in the best interest of Sahara's crores of existing investors and to protect the livelihood of 12 lakhs workers/employees".

Reiterating its earlier stand with regard to direct repayment to a bulk of investors, the group said Sebi has been asking for more money for the last 15 months despite having refunded only about Rs 1 crore from the Rs 5,120 crore already deposited with the regulator.

"Hence, Sebi has balance amount of approximately Rs 5,619 crore (including interest earned amount)," the proposal said. Still, it said Saharas propose to furnish bank guarantees for a total sum of Rs 22,500 crore, while the Sebi can immediately proceed with sale of properties whose titles have been already handed over to it by the group.

The step-by-step proposal, consisting of broadly ten points, further said Sebi would have to stop the sale of properties once it gets the bank guarantees and the money collected from such sale would have to returned to Sahara.

PTI