RBI denies para-banking license to Sahara

By NewsGram staff writer

Lucknow: In a fresh setback to the beleaguered Sahara India Pariwar, Sahara India Financial Corporation Limited's license holding has been cancelled by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday.

The action has been taken by the department of non-banking supervision of the RBI, in Kanpur.

The move comes in wake of several irregularities and ignoring financial rules and regulations by Sahara, an official further informed.

The notice regarding cancellation of the license to conduct financial business has been sent to the Kapurthala headquarters of Sahara India.

The move is being seen as the 'final nail' in the fortunes of the once-fledgling company as the SIFCL was its core wing from which money was collected through small time subscribers and then routed to other wings such as media, real estate and others.

With its chairman Subrata Roy Sahara already in jail for more than a year, the RBI action, many fear, could "break the financial spine" of the organisation.

Under the new order, the Sahara India would be barred from any sort of financial transactions.

The RBI had in 2008 barred the company from taking any deposits from the people under its chit fund operations.

Many depositors had since then complained to the RBI that they were not being paid back their money by Sahara, following which a probe was ordered by the bank.

A report of the investigations was sent to the RBI HQ in Mumbai last month after which the penal action of cancelling the license of SIFCL was taken.

(with inputs from IANS)