Sahara Sells Residential Project in Ahmedabad to City-based Firm

Following last week’s verdict by a Bench of Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice A.K. Sikri, Sahara group has sold approximately 4.21 lakh square metres of land belonging to its residential scheme 'Sahara City' in Ahmedabad to city-based developers for a sum of Rs 464 crore. The new bench had turned down Sahara Chief Subrata Roy’s bail plea and approved the sale of nine of its properties to furnish the bail amount.

Sahara had submitted a list of nine immovable properties in nine different cities of the country, the sale of which was approved by the court. However, the sale of three other properties situated abroad was stayed by the court, for want of necessary details. The court had ordered that the question is left open to be determined after the requisite documents/information is made available by Sahara in terms of our order dated 29th May, 2014.

H N Safal's owner Dhiren Vora reportedly confirmed the sale and said, "H N Safal and Goyal & Co are equal partners. We have purchased Sahara City (project here) for Rs 464 crore. As per Supreme Court directives, we have deposited the amount into Sahara's Sebi controlled bank account."

The residential scheme was flouted by Sahara at Shela village near Bopal, a few years ago. However, many customers didn’t get the possession of houses even after paying full amount. The Ahmedabad based firm has now promised to build homes for the people who had already booked homes there.

Sahara was trying to free its Chief from a very long time. In March 2014, an order was passed by the apex court for granting interim bail to the Chief as well as three other directors, on the condition that they deposit Rs.10, 000-crores. Out of this a sum of Rs.5,000-crores had to be deposited in cash before this Court while the balance amount of Rs.5000-crores had to be secured by a bank guarantee of a nationalized bank, furnished in favor of the SEBI. Read Livelaw story, here.

Instead of complying with this order, Roy had filed writ petitions challenging the validity of the order. The petitions were heard by a bench comprising of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and J.S. Khehar, and were subsequently dismissed. This Bench had penned the noteworthy judgment which had lengthened the Chief’s stay under custody. It had rejected his plea challenging its March 4 order detaining him for not abiding by the order to return investors money by steering it through SEBI. Justice Khehar in this judgment had said, “We won’t allow Bench Hunting, Bench-Hopping or Bench Avoiding” Read the Live Law story here.

The Bench last week modified the order to the extent of de-freezing certain properties, in order to enable them to raise the amount for his bail.

Read more news about the Sahara case here

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