Click to play videoLucknow: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Allahabad High Court's stay on its order asking Sahara India Pariwar's para-banking company from taking fresh deposits.
The RBI had on Wednesday prohibited Sahara India Financial Corporation (SIFCL) from accepting any more deposits citing violation of norms but on Thursday, Sahara Group Chairman Subroto Roy got a stay order against the RBI directive from the Allahabd High Court.
With the Uttar Pradesh government saying investors with the group might be taken for a ride, people who have deposited their hard-earned money with SIFCL are uncertain about its fate.
"I had saved Rs 20 everyday for so long and then deposited it thinking the money would come in use at the time of my daughter's wedding," says a distraught investor.
Another investor says, "I have Rs 1 lakh in the fixed deposit with the company but from the last month I've not been getting any returns on it."
"I would've got more than Rs 15,000 on March 9, but I'll have to go to the court to ask for justice," adds a third investor.
Commenting on the stay order Sahara Group lawyer Piyush Agarwal said, "Blanket ban on the deposits does not serve the interest of either the depositors or the employees of the company. Therefore in the general interest of the employees, the honourable High Court has stayed the order."
SIFCL is a popular non -banking company and claims to have more than 60 lakh investors mainly from Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar. The net worth of the deposits with SIFCL is reported to exceed Rs 20,000 crore.
For Roy, who is known to be very close to UP's former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, the RBI order has come as a big blow.
And with Mayawati government also shooting off a letter to the RBI, more trouble is in store for Roy's group.
On Thursday, the UP Chief Secretary wrote a letter to the RBI asking for stringent action against the Sahara Group as they might sell of their assets and not return the investors their money.
The letter said: "The only direction is to repay the deposits as and when they mature. It does not even prohibit SIFCL from alienating its assets, which the RBI is empowered by section 45 MB (2). In absence of such a prohibition depositors will have serious apprehensions about possible alienation of the assets jeopardising the security of their deposits."
With Mayawati looking for opportunities to settle scores with her archrivals, Subroto Roy will be very careful about his next moves.
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