Sahara Group founder Subrata Roy, 75, passed away in Mumbai on Tuesday night following a protracted illness. After being admitted in Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital & Medical Research Institute on Sunday, complications from diabetes, hypertension, and metastatic cancer led to his death by cardiorespiratory arrest. His brother, kid, and wife all survive him.
Things to know about Saharasri
- Born in Araria, Bihar, on June 10, 1948, Subrata Roy Sahara attended the Government Technical Institute in Gorakhpur to study mechanical engineering. He started his business ventures in Gorakhpur, where his entrepreneurial experience started. Later, in 1976, he became the CEO of Sahara Finance, which had started off as a chit-fund company. He was successful in turning it into Sahara India Pariwar, a well-known Indian conglomerate, by 1978.
- Subrata Roy succeeded in growing the empire to include a variety of industries, including media, real estate, hospitality, and banking. Sahara India Pariwar was in charge of many projects, such as Filmy, Sahara Movie Studios, Uttar Pradesh Wizards, Air Sahara, and Aamby Valley City. The conglomerate made investments in media, entertainment, real estate, housing, finance, tourism, and hospitality. They worked on anything from large-scale event planning to home constructions.
the Sahara group
- In 1992, the Sahara group ventured into the media with the introduction of Rashtriya Sahara, a Hindi daily. Subsequently, they ventured into the television market as Sahara TV, which later changed its name to Sahara One.
- Honors & Recognitions: In 2002, Subrata Roy was awarded the Best Industrialist Award and the Businessmen of the Year Award, among other distinctions. The Vishisht Rashtriya Udaan Samman (2010), the Vocational Award for Excellence (2010) from Rotary International, the Karmaveer Samman (1995), the Udyam Shree (1994), the Baba-E-Rozgar Award (1992), and the National Citizen Award (2001) were among the honors bestowed upon him. He was listed by India Today magazine as one of the country’s ten most powerful businesspeople in 2012.
- In 2014, Subrata Roy was placed under arrest by the Supreme Court of India due to his non-appearance in court about a disagreement with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Due to a protracted court fight that followed, he was imprisoned in Tihar Jail. In the end, he received a parole discharge.
What was the case that the Sahara Group faced from the SEBI?
Seen as a breach of regulatory standards, Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Ltd (SIRECL) & Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Ltd (SHICL) were ordered by SEBI in 2011 to repay money received from investors through Optionally Fully Convertible Bonds (OFCDs).
Following an extended sequence of appeals and counter-appeals, the Supreme Court affirmed SEBI’s mandate on August 31, 2012, directing the two companies to return the monies they had collected to investors plus fifteen percent interest. After that, even though the group claimed to have previously reimbursed over 95% of the investors’ money, Sahara was told to deposit an estimated ₹24,000 crore with SEBI for additional investor reimbursement, citing it as a “double payment.”
Roy was being carried to the Supreme Court
In one instance, Roy was being carried to the Supreme Court wearing his trademark waistcoat and tie when a man from Gwalior called him a thief and spat ink all over his face. It was a wild sight. When Roy failed to show up in the supreme court in 2014 for a contempt case stemming from two of his companies not paying investors ₹20,000 crore, he was placed under arrest. Even after he was given bail, his enterprises were still beset by problems.
