Sahara chairman’s death worries small time investors, who say their refund claims are being rejected on a government portal

The news of Sahara Group chairman Subrata Roy’s death earlier this week has worried lakhs of small time investors

The news of Sahara Group chairman Subrata Roy’s death earlier this week has worried lakhs of small time investors — including a significant number in Madhya Pradesh, which went to the polls on Friday — who put their hard-earned money into the four cooperative societies run by the businessman.

A portal launched by the Union Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah in July to refund the money of investors — most of whom hail from rural and semi-urban areas across 26 States — has not been effective.

Several depositors whom The Hindu spoke to said that their claims were rejected citing deficiencies such as a mismatch in signature, and absence of data in the records of the parent company, among others.

Abhay Dev Shukla, the president of a registered body representing Sahara investors, demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the circumstances around Mr. Roy’s death. He claimed that the portal launched by the government was meant to give Mr. Roy an escape route from multiple legal cases against him.

“Except his wife, none of the family members are in India. How will we get our money back? The portal launched by the Union government was only to mislead the people. 99.99% investors have not got the money back. Claims are being rejected on frivolous grounds,” Mr. Shukla claimed. He added that, irrespective of the value of investments, the refund amount has been capped at ₹10,000.

Mr. Shukla said there are at least 1.5 crore Sahara investors in Madhya Pradesh; together with their families, they constitute around three crore people. “The Sahara-affected people constitute around 3% population and they are bound to make their presence felt in today’s election,” he said. However, according to the Cooperation Ministry’s record, there are only 13 lakh Sahara investors in Madhya Pradesh.

In Uttar Pradesh, there are 85 lakh depositors who had invested a total of ₹22,000 crore. There are 55 lakh depositors in Bihar, 24 lakh in Jharkhand, 18 lakh in Rajasthan, 20 lakh in Odisha, 14 lakh in West Bengal, eight lakh each in Gujarat and Assam, six lakh in Chhattisgarh, five lakh each in Haryana and Delhi, four lakh in Andhra Pradesh, and three lakh each in Telangana and Maharashtra.