https://www.bollywoodshaadis.

com/articles/subrata-roy-love-story-22840
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_India_Pariwar_investor_fraud_case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_India_Pariwar

Sahara India Pariwar is an Indian company headquartered in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh , India. The
group operates business sectors like finance, infrastructure & housing, land, sports, power,
manufacturing, media & entertainment, health care, life assurance , hospital, cooperative society, IT
and knowledge technology. Sahara India Pariwar was founded by Subrata Roy Sahara In 1978,
they're termed residuary non-banking companies (RNBCs) that accept deposits of very low amounts
with the promise of lucrative returns after a particular period of time. It had been termed by Time
magazine as ‘the second largest employer in India' after the Indian Railways as they had 30 million
depositors. With time, Sahara was capable to collect enough capital to take a position in other
businesses like airlines, real estate, television, sports, etc.

At the initial stages, Sahara was to return the depositors' promised returns as long as they were
ready to gather new depositors. It helped them earn faith, made Mr. Subrata a good public figure
ahead of the general public. He engaged in public speaking, social works like he organized with
great fanfare the 101 marriages of women coming from the weaker section of the society, distributed
relief during flood-hit Uttarakhand. One lakh bottles of beverage , packaged juices, food packets,
and other necessary items were provided by them. Sahara group had provided support to 127
families of the martyrs.

In short, he made his Sahara empire on the faith of mass people and on his saint-like image. Sahara
Pariwar was never featured negatively in the media for an extended time. Although the intellectuals
had always doubted his business model.

Being a largely unlisted company, Sahara India Parivar's activities have in recent times come under
criticism. This includes allegations of unknown sources of capital, favorable treatment by political
parties. On 26 February 2014, the Supreme Court of India had issued warrants to summon Subrata
Roy, on litigation on the Optionally Fully Convertible Debentures issued by the 2 companies of
Sahara India Pariwar to which Securities and Exchange Board of India had claimed its jurisdiction
and objected on why Sahara has not taken permission from it. Sahara has claimed that the said
bonds are hybrid products, thus don't come under the jurisdiction of SEBI. SEBI ordered Sahara's
two companies to prevent issuing the bonds and return money to investors.

Sahara repeatedly claimed in court that they're returning the depositors however, with the shock of
everyone, a revelation was made when only around 4,600 investors in two Sahara group companies
had come to claim refunds from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), which had asked
those who had purchased bonds issued by the entities to claim their money. This gave a legitimate
point to Sahara's argument before courts that it had repaid most of the investors who had come to
the fore to say the investment which they had made was fettered issued by two group companies.

In summary, Sahara Parivar made its business empire on a questionable model, used marginal
people's money to gather huge capital for starting other businesses which are considered as a fraud
and alleged to money laundering. In this case, the lack of transparency, political influence, and weak
monitoring system of the Indian government are visible to everyone. Sahara thought they will be
never under prosecution, and they are smart enough to fake the law with fake documents. The
refund procedure to its depositors is ongoing but the total fraud had made many people suffered.