held by sebi and should be returned to sahara sahara has given all original documents pertaining to its 3 crore investors to sebi nine years back for verification and as per the directives of the supreme court this amount of rs 25000 crore will eventually come back to sahara it said in a statementthe group further said it was unfortunate and unacceptable for sebi to hold on to the funds deposited by saharathis huge amount of money is lying unutilised idle in the banks which is not only hurting the interest of sahara as a business organisation but also impeding the economic growth of our country especially in these testing times of economic slowdown it addedsebi had ordered sahara india real estate corporation ltd sirecl and sahara housing investment corporation ltd shicl in 2011 to refund the money raised from investors through certain bonds known as optionally fully convertible bonds ofcds after the regulator ruled that the funds were raised by the two firms in violation of its rules and regulationsafter a long process of appeals and crossappeals the supreme court on august 31 2012 upheld sebis directions asking the two firms to refund the money collected from investors with 15 per cent interestsahara was eventually asked to deposit an estimated rs 24000 crore with sebi for further refund to investors though the group always maintained it amounted to double payment as it had already refunded more than 95 per cent of investors directlyin its annual report for 202021 sebi said its actions in the case are overseen by justice retd b n agarwal appointed by the supreme court in this matter and details are provided in the status report filed before the apex court from time to timeas of march 31 2021 sebi had filed 22 status reports before the supreme court in this mattersahara group in its statement said it has always built its businesses by productively channelizing human capital spread across india and giving employment and work at peoples doorstepin this way sahara is providing bread and butter to more than 14 lakh people in their own villages and towns it is the countrys secondlargest human capital after indian railways this amount could have been used by the organisation to generate more employment and work and helped the country and therefore its economy it added