Days after Sebi cancelled Sahara India Financial Corporation Ltd’s (SIFCL) certificate of registration as a sub-broker citing non-compliance with ‘fit and proper’ criteria, Sahara India on Sunday said the company had “willfully” surrendered the licence two years back. On March 3, Sebi passed an order cancelling the certificate of registration of SIFCL as a sub-broker citing its failure to fulfil the ‘fit and proper’ criteria.
In a statement on Sunday, Sahara India Pariwar said the “licence was already willfully surrendered by the company two years back”. On March 4, the group wrote to Sebi saying that on October 3, 2018, SIFCL had surrendered the sub-brokership license to IDBI Capital and that through a letter dated October 8, 2018, “it was well communicated to Sebi”, as per the statement.
“It appears that mentioning of voluntarily surrendering the license has escaped Sebi’s attention. The order should have the word ‘cancelled as surrendered’ in order to avoid ambiguity in this regard and placing true and correct facts amongst public at large,” it noted.
Further, the statement said that in the letter dated October 8, 2018, SIFCL had maintained that it had never worked on the issued licenses since inception and voluntarily surrendering both the licenses.
In the March 3 order, Sebi said that as a watchdog of the securities market and protector of investor’s interest, Sebi cannot take it lightly in view of the actions/ proceedings carried out against a substantial shareholder/ promoter of the notice i.e. Subrata Roy Sahara and the companies with whom he is associated.