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A day after the Supreme Court asked how Sahara refunded Rs 20,000 crore in cash to investors, the group said on Wednesday such large-scale dealings were possible with its vast network of branches.
Claiming its cash transactions were based on a "strict, convenient, safe and cost-effective policy," the group blamed the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for delaying the refund to investors.
Sahara said Sebi had not initiated verification of even one of the 30 million investors in the past 17 months and avoided reporting the valuation of asset details submitted by the group. It welcomed the court's direction to Sebi to come out with the valuation report.
The Supreme Court had made the observations after Sebi said the group had not furnished any bank statements to support the refunds to investors. In a statement, Sahara said it had put in place the cash policy after hundreds of cases of "snatching, robberies, injuries" and even death faced by its workers while carrying money between branches and banks.
Sahara said the regulator "does not want to understand the spread of our network into 4,700 centres" and the average daily payment at each branch of about Rs 2.5 lakh. The case relates to the refund of over Rs 24,000 crore to investors by two Sahara firms through Sebi.
Sahara deposited Rs 5,120 crore with Sebi and claimed more than Rs 20,000 crore was returned directly to investors who had subscribed to bonds issued by the two firms. In the past 17 months, Sebi has repaid about Rs 70 lakh out of the Rs 5,120 crore deposited.
Pointing out that the image and credibility of Sahara, where 1.2 million families earn their livelihood, have been "severely affected", the group said most of its investors were small and the average bond investment amount was Rs 8,000. It claimed almost 98 per cent of its investors had put in amounts ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 19,000.
About heavy payments within a short period, Sahara said Sebi did not want to understand the spread of its network in 4,700 centres. "If carefully calculated, it will be found branch average payments per day is around Rs 2.5 lakh," the group said.
