In Subrata Roy's delusional world, he is the financial messiah of the unwashed masses

“Delusional” is one way to describe Subrata Roy, the mercurial and controversial boss of the Sahara Group.

“Shadowy” is the best way to describe his group, which got its comeuppance from the Supreme Court yesterday (4 March) when its boss was sent to jail and asked to fork out Rs 24,000 crore or else…

The group can loosely be called an unregulated money circulating enterprise whose branches operate on the edges of the law, and often outside it. The latter reason was why the top court ordered the group in August 2012 to refund Rs 24,000-and-odd crore to investors in two of its group companies, Sahara India Real Estate Corporation and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation.

Over the years, the group, which claims a net worth of Rs 68,000 crore, some 1.2 million employees, and 80 million investors, has behaved more like an outlier religious cult than a genuine business enterprise, as its internal codes showed. Sahara employees are expected to greet one another with Sahara Pranams and wear uniforms on some days, and new recruits were expected to listen to nine-hour monologues from Subrata Roy over four days in his 200-acre Lucknow lair. Says one former recruit, writing in Business Standard, “employees who wanted to have a meaningful future with Sahara (were) encouraged to write an exam based on the book written by Saharasri that gave his thoughts on ‘sukh, shanti and sammriddhi’. Doing that entitled us to a promotion and a princely raise of Rs 500 per month.”

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Roy’s delusions were in full display at the court hearing yesterday. He sees himself as this great prophet of financial inclusiveness - the rickshaw-puller’s bank, the old widow’s saviour - whose efforts have gone unappreciated.

At one stage, he told the court that he would have been praised anywhere else, “ but not in this country”.

When the entire case is that his group has many fictitious investors, one wonders why Roy thinks he should be considered a hero. Even mafia dons like Dawood Ibrahim and Chhita Rajan provide employment to thousands of criminals, but that does not make them worthy of national praise.

On another occasion, Roy said about his business: “It is a beautiful human story. If you hear our story, you will love us and you will pat us.”

And this, when all along it has been trying to evade the law and regulators. Not surprisingly, despite Roy’s invitation to listen to his “beautiful human story,” the Supreme Court turned a deaf ear. All it could hear was continued defiance of the law. It brought him down with this observation: “We will love you if you pay the investors’ money. We will love you if you obey the rule of law. We will love you if you comply with our judgment.” Touche.

When his emotional appeals cut no ice with the court, Roy tried a different approach, demanding sympathy, saying he couldn’t pay as there was a liquidity crisis. The Times of India quotes him as saying: “We were facing a bad situation. This kind of liquidity (cash in hand) is not there even with the banks. We are ready to sell the assets starting from tomorrow. Money will come. Whatever shortfall, we will make good by giving irrevocable bank guarantee. Be sympathetic to us. We will give bank guarantee for Rs 22,500 crore.”

Again, this statement betrays illogic and delusional belief that courts are moved by such appeals after years of recalcitrance. Roy has always claimed that he has paid all of the Rs 24,000 crore due to his investors, and only Rs 2,000-and-odd crore is left. He apparently had no liquidity crisis paying off his investors quietly, but now he has one when the court is demanding it. Did he seriously expect the court to believe this?

The court itself punctured his claim of a liquidity crunch. Justice JS Khehar dismissed the idea with this statement: “We have seen hundreds and thousands of crores of cash flow moving here and there in your submissions. There was money.”

But Roy demanded understanding. He said: “Please understand our position. We have given all receipts about refund to Sebi. If I am not able to refund the money (through sale of assets and bank guarantee), I will come back before the court to face punishment. We have paid Rs 137 lakh crore (sic) to investors in (the) last 37 years. My folded hand request to you is please allow us to sell our assets and pay and furnish bank guarantee for rest of the amount.”

It didn’t strike Roy that if he could not sell his assets in the 19 months since the Supreme Court gave its judgment, he could hardly hold the court responsible for this and seek more time.

In response to the allegation that Sebi got no response when it asked investors to come forward for refunds, Roy gave this ingenious reply: “A rickshaw puller after getting back his money would not waste a Rs 2 stamp to write back to Sebi. With folded hands, on behalf of the 12 lakh people in Sahara group, I am requesting you to direct the Sebi to verify the documents. Everything will be clear.”

It did not strike Roy that a 1 percent response rate to Sebi’s letters is not exactly an endorsement of his stand that rickshaw-pullers had been paid. Over 90 percent of his refunds couldn’t have been people who won’t bother replying to Sebi.

When it seemed that his entreaties were not working, The Economic Times quoted Roy as making another bid for the court’s sympathy. “I beg the court with folded hands to save us. We are law-abiding. We will obey every order, address every concern of the court. We genuinely honour the court order, (and) commit to pay.”

It didn’t strike him that he has not complied with Supreme Court’s orders dated 31 August 2012, 5 December 2012, and 25 February 2013. How can he then be considered a “law-abiding” citizen.

It was left to the Sebi counsel Arvind Datar to point out that Sahara has been lying most of the time. He said: “Every hearing they come with a new story. Every time we disprove their story. They come with a new story. This case has had well-advised periods and not-so-well-advised periods. But what it did not have was a truthful period”.

The Supreme Court itself had no illusions about Roy’s truthfulness and law-abiding nature. It noted harshly: “Every statement in affidavits for (the) last two years has been false. All wrong affidavits were filed before the court and they were absolutely incorrect and false statements were made in it. We are extremely sorry to say false affidavits were filed by you at every stage and that in itself is contempt of court.”

If a “delusional” individual can be said to be someone who cannot see what everyone else can, Roy certainly fits the bill. He claimed to be the wronged individual, and sought the court’s indulgence for failing to turn up on 26 February, as the court ordered. He obviously considers this his only big failure to honour the court (he claimed he was at his ailing mother’s bedside). The reality is that he has been stringing Sebi and the court along for 19 months.

It was upto the court to bring him down to earth with this observation: “For the last one-and-a-half years, we had tried to accommodate you. You said go to hell. What can we do? The court was forced to bring the hammer on you. Now you have to implement the order.”

One should ask: what new misstatement or untruth will Subrata Roy tell himself and the world to wriggle out of this box?