Sahara's Aamby Valley up for sale for Rs 37,392 crore reserve price

Mumbai: Four days after the Supreme Court rejected Sahara chief Subrata Roy's plea seeking a stay on auction of Aamby Valley City, the Bombay High Court on Monday accelerated the sale of the township in Lonavala near Pune. The development comes in the backdrop of an ongoing court-directed dues recovery process against Sahara.

The official liquidator appointed by the Bombay HC has fixed a reserve price of Rs 37,392 crore for the formal sale to start, according to a report on the IANS. Earlier, the value of the City was calculated anywhere between Rs 39,000 crore to Rs 44,000. The Bombay HC official liquidator Vinod Sharma issued auction notices to media houses on Monday.

Last week, Sahara chief Subrata Roy had told the apex court that it expected a positive development over the issue of refund to markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). The Sahara group was instructed by the court to deposit Rs 1,500 crore with Sebi by September 7.

The Aamby Valley property is spread over an area of 6,761.64 acres. The hill-station township has an Aamby Valley City Development body, a first of its kind Megalopolis. The area has a land parcel measuring 1,409.87 acres surrounding this project and another 321.66 acres within adjoining Satara district, the IANS report added.

In 2014, the apex court on February 26 had issued an order for Subrata Roy's arrest, as Roy had failed to appear before it in a case related to default of Rs 24,000 crore worth deposits. Based on the ongoing litigation, Roy's Sahara group had failed to refund its investors.