Sahara overvalued properties, SEBI tells SC

New Delhi, Nov 21:

faced the wrath of the apex court on Wednesday when Securities Exchanges Board of India claimed before the court that the group had overvalued its properties.

SC expressed strong displeasure over Sahara's non compliance of its earlier order of handing over all original title deeds of assets worth Rs 20,000 crore to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

However, the bench refrained from passing any order as the Sahara's arguing counsel was not present.

"It is a mockery of our order if it has been complied with in this way," the bench said and posted the case for hearing on Thursday.
Sebi told the court that Sahara group overvalued its properties and did not hand over all original title deeds of assets worth Rs 20,000 crore as per its direction.

The market watchdog said that apex court's order has not been complied with by the group and assets whose documents were given to it are worth much less than Rs 20,000 crore.

Sahara had given Sebi documents of two plots of land, one of which is a 106-acre land in Versova, which according to it is worth around Rs 19,000 crore and the other is a 200 acre land in Vasai, which it estimates to be of Rs 1,000 crore.

The title deeds were to be submitted as guarantee towards securing balance payment of R24,000 crore, which the two Sahara firms -Sahara India Real Estate Corp and Sahara Housing Investment Corp - had collected in 2008-09 from the public violating investor protection norms.

OneIndia News

(Witha agency inputs)