Book on 'Sahara' released by former SEBI chairman

The book reveals several facts, incidents and opinions which were never in public and also satisfies many curiosities about Sahara Group especially in the light of the ongoing Sahara and SEBI case.

In his book Tamal Bandyopadhyay noted that the RBI had reconstituted the Sahara India Financial Corporation Ltd’s board in July 2008 and appointed three independent directors – H N Sinor, former MD of ICICI Bank, Chartered Accountant TN Manoharan and 1970 batch IAS officer Arvind Jadhav.

Bandyopadhyay said, "If we just look back in 2008, it would be evident that Sahara once repaid 18,000 crore rupees to four crore investors under direct supervision of the Reserve Bank of India and no debate was there about the authenticity of investors."

"The board did not come across a single complaint of a customer losing money and there was not even a single case of violation detected even after the board tightened the KYC norms," Bandyopadhyay added.

"Photographs were taken of all depositors, branches were audited and random checks, technically called in-person verification were conducted, but not a single case of violation was detected,” the author quoted HN Sinor.

In the book, Bandyopadhyay mentioned, the independent directors of SIFCL board received the full cooperation of the Sahara Group.

Even Subrata Roy himself made it a point to attend most of their board meetings, the author noted.

Interestingly, some of the money that was being repaid to investors was finding its way back into Sahara Group companies and that signifies the faith of depositors on the group.

The book quotes one of the leaders of Indian banking sector, Sinor as saying that Sahara was a “unique lab of financial inclusion: It inculcated the habit of savings in poor people.”

The book said that by the time Manoharan and Sinor resigned in October 2011, SIFCL’s deposit liability came down to about Rs. 2,000 crore and net owned funds rose to Rs. 3,000 crore.

This may again be a proof that the investors who had put money with the company were not fictitious, Bandyopadhyay said.

Bandyopadhyay further mentioned in his book that had the regulators not entangled him; Roy would have done wonders in India.

He added that Sahara had just the right and well-entrenched model for financial inclusion, which has now become the mantra of both government and RBI.