Sahara Group Aamby Valley auction: Subrata Roy's luxury project to go under the hammer

Sahara Group's efforts to buy some time before the Aamby Valley was put up for sale seems to have failed with the Bombay High Court on Monday putting up the prestigious property in Maharashtra for a public auction. The reserve price for the property has been set at Rs. 37,392 crore. Three days earlier, the Supreme Court had dismissed the Sahara Group's plea to postpone the auction of the property. Notices in prominent media the public auction of "sale/lease" on an "as-is-where-is-whatever-there is' of the Aamby Valley City has been issued. The auction will take place in two phases for two days.

Here are all the top developments related to Aamby Valley Auction

1. Sahara group has been wanting to prevent the auction of the Aamby Valley Project. The group believes that if Aamby Valley is worth over Rs 1 lakh crore and if it is sold in a hurry, it will not fetch the right value. The Aamby Valley is spread over more than 10,000 acres and includes luxury resort accommodation and an 18-hole golf course. Sahara Group had earlier said that the "court's insistence to sell Aamby Valley whose value is more than Rs 1 lakh crore will only be a big favour to those one- two corporates who want to grab it cheaper".
2. According to a PTI report, big corporate houses such Tatas, Godrej, Adani and Patanjali apart from real estate developers including Omaxe and Eldeco have shown interest in buying Sahara group's 30 properties. But there's no knowledge if these companies will also bid for Aamby Valley. The valuation of most of Sahara's properties were expected to take a hit due to a hurry in getting the deals closed within a short time.
3. On August 10, Supreme Court had dismissed Sahara chief Subrata Roy's plea to put on hold the auction process of the group's ambitious luxury project Aamby Valley, in south of Mumbai, valued at Rs 34,000 crore. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Sahara Group, had urged the Supreme Court to postpone the publication of auction notice from August 14 to September 16.
4. Sibal had said Sahara Group's hotels in New York were sold and the group would be would able to deposit Rs 1,500 crore into the SEBI-SAHARA refund account by September 7. But Arvind Datar, senior advocate representing the SEBI, opposed Sibal's proposal and said the auction, which would be global, should not be stalled. The SEBI-SAHARA account was created for the money Sahara group was asked to deposit with the regulator for further refund to the bondholders from which the group had raised money.
5. The Supreme Court court on July 25 had asked Roy to deposit Rs 1,500 crore in the SEBI-Sahara account by September 7. The court had said that it would then consider his plea seeking 18 months time for making complete repayment. The Sahara Group has to repay around Rs 9,000 crore balance amount of the principal amount of Rs 24,000 crore. Roy was arrested after Sahara India Real Estate Corporation (SIRECL) and Sahara Housing Investment Corp Ltd (SHICL) failed to return Rs 24,000 crore to their investors. Roy has been on "parole" since May last year after spending more than two years in jail.