A submission by the Sahara Group relating to an investor intrigued Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar no end.
The Supreme Court judge referred to an entry in a hard copy of investor details furnished to the court and said, “during the course of an examination of the hard copy, it was not possible to persuade one self to travel beyond the first page of the voluminous compilation.”
Spurious names
Pointing to details of an investor ‘Kalawati,’ he said it is impossible to determine whether ‘Kalawati’ was invited to subscribe for the OFCDs, as a friend/associate/worker/employee or other individual connected in any manner with the Sahara India Group.
Further, ‘Kalawati’ is a very common name, and there could certainly be more than a couple of ‘Kalawatis’ at the investor’s address.
Neither her parentage nor her husband’s name has been disclosed so that the identity of ‘Kalawati’ could be exclusively determined to the individual who had subscribed.
Her address is of general description, as it does not incorporate a particular door number, street or locality.
The name of the introducer/agent ‘Haridwar’ led to a different impression altogether as a name of a person of Indian origin is quite incomprehensible.
In India, names of cities do not ever constitute the basis of individual names. One will never find Allahabad, Agra, Bangalore, Chennai or Tirupati as individual names. The address of the introducer in the compilation is as intriguing as the address itself.
There is no other option but to record, that the impression emerging from the analysis of the single entry extracted was that it seems totally unrealistic, and may well be, fictitious, concocted and made up, he said.
Despite restraint, he was compelled to record that the whole affair seems to be “doubtful, dubious and questionable. Money transactions are not expected to be casual, certainly not in the manner expressed by the two companies.”