All brides are beautiful, all dead men were good, said a poetaster. But there are persons who, during their lifetime, act in a way that leaves a question mark or lingering suspicion about their role in the field they belonged, even after their death.
Subrata Roy, the founder of the Sahara group, who died on the 14th, is one such person. He was a go-to person till recently with politicians, cricketers and film stars being his companies’ clients, giving rise to the suspicion that his dealings were shady and certainly not above board.
In March 2014, the Supreme Court ordered his detention for his defiance in not coming clean, but without charging him with any particular offence, in the hope that he would sing like a canary about the details of the bond holders whose ill-gotten money two group companies were suspected to be harboring and laundering with the help of benamis.
When the attempt failed, he had to be released in 2016 on parole after nearly two years of incarceration in Tihar Jail. All that the Supreme Court could do was to set up a “Sahara-SEBI refund account” into which as of date as per the latest annual reports of the two companies more than Rs25,000 crore has flowed but only a pitiful and measly Rs138 crore has been claimed and refunded.
Those in the know aver that Roy followed the Sicilian law of omerta till his last breath and did not give away his clients who in turn have not come forward to claim repayment of the proceeds of the bonds in their own enlightened self-interest. It is suspected that the so-called investors in bonds were ‘ghosts’ standing in for the rich and famous.
SEBI is obviously at its wits’ end in buttonholing all the bond-holders; nor are the bondholders coming forward in droves for the fear of courting trouble for themselves as well as for their benefactors. SEBI’s position is unenviable. There were as many as 3 crore investors in the bonds of the two group companies.
One wonders what would happen to the huge amount that remains in the Sahara-SEBI fund. It could be transferred to an investor protection fund if the Supreme Court gives its thumbs up at the request of SEBI. It is unlikely the beneficial owners (read the rich and the famous) of these bonds would step forward and cook their own goose. For that matter, even the SEBI doesn’t have the wherewithal to gun for all the ‘benamis’ with the Sahara Group of companies not supplying all the requisite data.
The death of Subrata Roy might well be the final nail in the coffin of the institution of benami holdings because though we have a law it is clearly not working despite the power of the authorities to seize benami properties. SEBI may have the satisfaction of seizing black money but it would have left the job of calling the bluff of the ostensible and real owners untouched substantially.
