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Sahara regains control of Aamby Valley, Roy assures normalcy to staff
The Supreme Court on July 12 had deferred the auctioning process of Aamby Valley as it failed to elicit any response from prospective buyers. The court also agreed to remove the receiver and official liquidator from the premium property, paving way for the hill city’s restoration to the Sahara Parivar.
Sahara group chairman Subrata Roy visited Aamby Valley on Monday to restart operations with the Supreme Court having restored its control to the group.
The Supreme Court on July 12 had deferred the auctioning process of Aamby Valley as it failed to elicit any response from prospective buyers. The court also agreed to remove the receiver and official liquidator from the premium property, paving way for the hill city’s restoration to the Sahara Parivar.
During his visit to Aamby Valley on Monday, Roy met the staff and villagers and discussed resumption of some of the operations which had been discontinued after the SC had put it up for auctioning.
“Hon’ble Supreme Court through its order has given Aamby Valley City back to Sahara and has also withdrawn the Receiver and Official liquidator from the city owned by Sahara India Pariwar. The court has also directed that all documents and papers pertaining to Aamby Valley to be given back to Sahara,” said Sahara India Parivar in a statement on Tuesday.
During the interaction with the villagers and staff, Roy assured them that things will be normal very soon.
The luxurious Aamby Valley project near Lonavla was locked out during October 2017 leading to massive lay off of employees as it had been put up for auctioning. Around 1,600 employees working in different departments had lost their jobs while remaining 550 were facing difficulties in getting their salaries on time, said workers union member Sunil Hundare.
In a statement, Sahara Parivar said that Roy spoke with the villagers and workers and personally assured them that normal operations would resume soon and would create opportunities for everyone.
Sahara’s lawyer Vikas Singh in his statement said that a few months back, the court had proposed that Sahara deposit ₹750 crore to enable the court to grant full control of Aamby Valley to Sahara. Consequently, Sahara informed the court that two firms, Sai Rydam Realtors Private limited and Prime Down Town Real Estate Private Limited were willing to purchase its property at Vasai near Mumbai for around ₹1,000 crore which would be deposited in the SEBI-Sahara account.
“Considering the same, court has withdrawn the receiver and official liquidator from Aamby Valley and given back the operations to Sahara. The bench then asked the two firms to deposit a demand draft of ₹99 crore and gave a timeline for depositing the remaining amount,” Singh said in his statement.
