The Supreme Court has agreed to entertain the plea by Sahara Group appealing the apex court to put a hold on the auction of its Aamby Valley property.
The apex court informed Sahara Group about its decision earlier today, ANI reports said. The Lucknow-based conglomerate had moved the Supreme Court to stay the auction of Aamby Valley, a Pune-based township it developed.
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A three-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra and comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Arjan Kumar Sikri, decided that the matter will be taken up at a later date. The bench was hearing arguments between Sahara Group and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
Sahara Group has mentioned that it is taking care of repayment of funds to its investors. Group's counsel Kapil Sibal requested the bench to postpone the publication of sale notice and allot more time to assess its repayment plan.
The Supreme Court had ordered auction of Sahara's Rs 34,000 crore Aamby Valley properties last month over the business conglomerate's failure to deposit money for refunding to its investors.
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The top court had directed the official liquidator of Bombay High Court on July 25 to initiate the first two steps of the process to auction Aamby Valley. This would have included publishing sales notice and fulfil KYC norms to be submitted by the prospective bidders.
The Supreme Court earlier had directed Sahara Group to deposit Rs 1,500 crore in the joint SEBI-Sahara account by September 7. It has, however, clarified that the auction process of Aamby Valley will be stopped if Sahara Group repays the funds to its investors in time.
The Sahara chief Subrata Roy had given an undertaking to the Supreme Court bench that he would deposit Rs 1,500 crore by June 15 and another payment of Rs 552.22 crore by July 15 in the SEBI-Sahara account. The apex court had cautioned that failure to make this payment would land him in jail.
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The SEBI had alleged that Sahara Group's chief failed to comply with a previous Supreme Court order to repay investors over Rs 20,000 crore with 15 percent interest that his two companies - the Sahara India Real Estate Corp Ltd and the Sahara Housing Finance Corp. Ltd. - had raised through optionally fully convertible debentures (OFCD) in 2007 and 2008.
The Sahara group had denied these allegations and claimed to pay more than 80 percent of the dues to the bondholders. The SEBI disputed these claims and said the Group has not paid more than Rs 9,000 crore dues.
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