The information of Sahara Group chairman Subrata Roy’s death earlier this week has apprehensive lakhs of small time traders — together with a important quantity in Madhya Pradesh, which went to the polls on Friday — who put their hard-earned cash into the 4 cooperative societies run by the businessman.
A portal launched by the Union Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah in July to refund the cash of traders — most of whom hail from rural and semi-urban areas throughout 26 States — has not been efficient.
Several depositors whom The Hindu spoke to stated that their claims had been rejected citing deficiencies reminiscent of a mismatch in signature, and absence of information within the information of the mum or dad firm, amongst others.
‘CBI probe needed’
Abhay Dev Shukla, the president of a registered physique representing Sahara traders, demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to analyze the circumstances round Mr. Roy’s death. He claimed that the portal launched by the government was meant to offer Mr. Roy an escape route from a number of authorized instances towards him.
“Except his wife, none of the family members are in India. How will we get our money back? The portal launched by the Union government was only to mislead the people. 99.99% investors have not got the money back. Claims are being rejected on frivolous grounds,” Mr. Shukla claimed. He added that, regardless of the worth of investments, the refund quantity has been capped at ₹10,000.
Impact on M.P. voters
Mr. Shukla stated there are at the least 1.5 crore Sahara traders in Madhya Pradesh; along with their households, they represent round three crore folks. “The Sahara-affected people constitute around 3% population and they are bound to make their presence felt in today’s election,” he stated. However, in response to the Cooperation Ministry’s document, there are solely 13 lakh Sahara traders in Madhya Pradesh.
In Uttar Pradesh, there are 85 lakh depositors who had invested a whole of ₹22,000 crore. There are 55 lakh depositors in Bihar, 24 lakh in Jharkhand, 18 lakh in Rajasthan, 20 lakh in Odisha, 14 lakh in West Bengal, eight lakh every in Gujarat and Assam, six lakh in Chhattisgarh, 5 lakh every in Haryana and Delhi, 4 lakh in Andhra Pradesh, and three lakh every in Telangana and Maharashtra.
‘One of the biggest jumlas’
Shankar Pandit, a Sahara agent from Muzaffarpur in Bihar, stated that the portal was rejecting many claims, stating “no record found”. He identified that many individuals are in dire want of cash for medical remedy or for their daughters’ weddings. However, the police stations refuse to register first info experiences (FIRs) on the problem.
“Many people died due to natural causes or committed suicide after they stopped getting returns from the Sahara societies. The portal does not have any option for the nominee to claim the funds. It has turned out to be one of the biggest jumlas (empty claims). There are 550 investors in my village; barring a few, all have applied. The government said the money will be credited within 45 days. It has been more than 100 days now; none got the money,” Mr. Pandit stated.
On Facebook, a neighborhood web page by the Sahara Niveshak Morcha, which has 13,600 members, is abuzz with fears that Mr. Roy’s death will additional affect the method of their returns.
Lakhs affected
On July 18, the Union government arrange the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies (CRCS) portal — at mocrefund.crcs.gov.in — for small traders in 4 cooperatives: Sahara Credit Cooperative Society Limited, Saharayn Universal Multipurpose Society Limited, Humara India Credit Cooperative Society Limited, and Stars Multipurpose Cooperative Society Limited. These coops had been registered between March 2010 and January 2014, in Lucknow, Bhopal, Hyderabad, and Kolkata, underneath the provisions of the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002.
For the primary few years, traders acquired the promised returns of round 7% to 11%. From the 2017-18 monetary 12 months, nonetheless, the returns stopped.
The Sahara Group of firms is going through investigations by a number of businesses, together with the Enforcement Directorate (ED), since 2008. In March 2014. Mr. Roy had even been arrested by the ED following an investigation completed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
Amid allegations of cash laundering, in 2012, the Supreme Court ordered Sahara to deposit ₹25,000 crore in a “Sahara-SEBI Refund Account”, to refund the high-net-worth traders of two different firms: Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Limited (SIRECL), and Sahara Housing India Corporation Limited (SHICL).
Refunding small depositors
According to SEBI’s annual report, over the previous 11 years, it has issued ₹138.07 crore in refunds to 48,326 accounts in response to 17,526 purposes by the traders of the 2 Sahara Group companies. Most high-net-worth traders by no means confirmed as much as declare the cash. The corpus of ₹24,000 crore nonetheless lies unused.
The Ministry filed a petition on this regard earlier than the SC, looking for ₹5,000 crore from the unused corpus of the Sahara-SEBI refund account to refund the small-time depositors. The court docket agreed to the Ministry’s suggestion on March 29.
The Ministry officers didn’t reply to queries from The Hindu on what number of traders have been refunded thus far.
Re-submission of claims
A number of days in the past, a “re-submission” possibility was made efficient on the portal, saying: “The applications submitted in CRCS-Sahara Refund Portal have been processed and payment upto ₹10,000 or less per application has been paid to eligible depositors, whose claims could be verified. For depositors whose claim could not be verified due to deficiencies in their claim, deficiency messages have been communicated… This Portal has been launched for re-submission of claims after rectification of deficiencies.”
The re-submissions are to be made in three phases. The first part, which began on November 15, is for claims upto ₹10,000. The second part will likely be efficient from November 25, for claims as much as ₹19,999. The dates for the third part, for any quantity above ₹19,999, will likely be communicated quickly.
