SEBI v. Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Limited and others (OFCD issues, 2022)

Judgment entered

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 9, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, in a single reading of the order; an independent second reading of 60 SEBI records agreed on every field for 56, the four misses being penalty amounts; a later sample of 50 of the SEBI records added on 9 October agreed on every field for 46. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In June 2022 a SEBI adjudicating officer imposed penalties of Rs 6 crore for each of two Sahara group companies' debenture issues, Rs 12 crore in all and shared jointly and severally among the companies and four officers. The order finds that the 2008 to 2009 issues were public offerings dressed up as private placements, with fraud and summons and order non-compliance penalties added.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

—

Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

120m INR

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars. This regulator states penalties in INR. The figure is recorded as published and is not converted, so it does not appear in the USD totals or medians used elsewhere on this site.

What is alleged to have happened

The order of 27 June 2022 concerns Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Limited (now Sahara Commodity Services Corporation Limited) and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Limited, and four individuals including Subrata Roy Sahara. SEBI came across the two companies' optionally fully convertible debentures while examining a draft prospectus for another group company. The earlier collections cited in the order are about Rs 19,400 crore for the first company and Rs 6,380 crore for the second.

SEBI alleged that the two companies raised money from the public without complying with the disclosure and investor-protection rules, by describing the issues as private placements, and that this was fraud under the PFUTP Regulations and section 12A of the SEBI Act. It also alleged that the noticees ignored summonses of August and September 2010 and the SEBI order of 23 June 2011 directing refunds.

The adjudicating officer found that the aim from the start was to issue to the public under the guise of private placement, that the prospectuses falsely said no listing was intended, and that the investors were deprived of the safeguards that apply to public issues. He noted that about Rs 15,473 crore of an original sum of about Rs 23,000 crore had been recovered by SEBI by March 2021, and that interest was still outstanding. He held the order-non-compliance period ran from 23 June 2011 to 31 August 2012, when the Supreme Court modified the SEBI order.

For each company the table imposes Rs 1 crore under section 15HB for the issue-guideline breaches, Rs 3 crore under section 15HA for the fraud provisions, Rs 1 crore under section 15A(a) for ignoring summonses and Rs 1 crore under section 15HB for ignoring SEBI's order, a total of Rs 6 crore per company matter, payable jointly and severally by the listed noticees. The two tables together give Rs 12 crore.

The record does not show whether the penalties were paid or appealed, or the current state of refunds to investors beyond the March 2021 figure quoted. SEBI imposes penalties here; it does not convict, and the order does not describe any criminal case.

This library tags the matter as misleading issuer disclosure, because the finding is that the offering documents misdescribed a public issue as a private placement. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the order.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Misleading issuer disclosure — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2022-06-27 SEBI adjudication order (27 June 2022)

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEBI order
• Order (PDF)

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added October 8, 2026. submit a correction.