Journalism of Courage
From selling snacks on a lambretta to mega gigs in own ‘Shaher’, from Re 1 deposits to Rs 1,50,000 crore assets. ANIL SASI & Subhomoy Bhattacharjee trail the missing numbers in Subrata Roy’s rise and descent. A business conglomerate with 4,799 establishments in its fold and an estimated Rs 1,50,000 crore in assets, and a market regulator dogging it since September 29, 2009. (IE Photo)
Late March 3 evening, as 65-year-old Subrata Roy was escorted into a 5×12 cell in Ward 4 of Tihar’s Jail No. 3 after the Supreme Court consigned him to judicial custody, it marked the beginning of the end of one of the longest-running battles involving a prominent corporate house and the country’s capital market regulator. (IE Photo)
Interestingly, between the time that SEBI first initiated the inquiry four years ago and Roy’s eventual arrest, there has not been a single instance of an investor in either of the two Sahara firms under watch actually filing a police complaint or going to court. Roy would want it to be seen as reflective of the group’s “beautiful story” which, he told the Supreme Court, would prompt it to fall in “love” with Sahara. While the plea evidently did not cut much ice with the judges, there is little doubt that Roy himself looks back with great affection on the empire that he built from scratch, with himself as the “guardian of the world’s largest family”. (IE Photo)
Nothing epitomises Roy’s preoccupation with his humble past more than the Lambretta scooter that stands enclosed in a cubicle in Lucknow’s Sahara Shaher — a throwback to how it all started over three-and-a-decades ago in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh’s hardscrabble east. (IE Photo)
The family is said to have its roots in Araria, Bihar, but was settled in Gorakhpur. Roy stayed with his parents and siblings in a rented house in Turkmanpur area. The eldest son, he did a diploma course before being forced to take up work due to the death of his father Sudhir Chandra, who worked in a sugar mill. Roy tried his hand first at making salted snacks, apparently supplying them on the Lambretta under a venture called ‘Jaya Products’. He then dabbled in yet another venture, along with wife Sapna Roy. Both ventures failed.
Subrata Roy and his wife Swapna Roy inaugrating mass marriage programme at Sahara Shaher in Lucknow. (Epress archive photo)
In 1978, Roy set up Sahara. The Gorakhpur para-banking venture focused on small investors, such as tea-stall owners and rickshaw-pullers, who set aside as little as Re 1 a day and chose to entrust the money to Sahara India Financial, the group’s flagship firm. In a matter of three decades, it grew into India’s largest residuary non-banking company. (IE Photo)
While financial details of this growth have never been officially issued, Sahara, in the course of 30 years, would go on to become an empire with an extensive media network, a full-scale scheduled commercial airline, Air Sahara (sold to Jet Airways in 2006 for over $500 million), acquisitions in the premium hospitality segment (including a controlling stake in New York’s landmark Plaza Hotel and London’s iconic Grosvenor House Hotel) and an IPL team. The group’s high-profile lead sponsorship of the Indian cricket team only ended in December 2013. Now Sahara sponsors the Indian hockey team and owns a stake in Vijay Mallya’s Formula One racing team. (IE Photo)
Alongside the growth of Sahara, grew the story of Subrata Roy. His ‘Sahara Shaher’, a fortified 270-acre gated complex in Lucknow where Roy lived amid much luxury, became the talk of the country, and not just for what it featured, but the people it hosted. He organised much-talked-about events, graced by movie stars, politicians and corporates, and left the country stunned with the February 2004 wedding of his two sons at Sahara Shaher. Stars would perform at gigs in his own private auditorium at the Shaher. When Mayawati targeted it when she came to power in 2007, the mini-city’s halo shone even brighter. (Express archive photo)
At the Sahara headquarters, staff were instructed to greet visitors by putting their right hand to their chest and saying “Sahara Pranam”. On Sahara TV, the anchors would greet the viewers in the same manner — all adding to Roy’s distinctive image. Sahara’s website claims no dividend has been paid to promoters for 34 years and no profit has been taken out of the group. (IE Photo)
Over the second half of the last decade, even as the run-ins of Sahara firms with regulators continued, Roy’s heady mix of politics and glamour showed no signs of diminishing. He would mostly be spotted with Samajwadi Party bigwigs Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh (then in the party) and Reliance ADAG chief Anil Ambani, players of the Indian cricket team, as well as the ever-present film stars. While allegations about Sahara being a parking lot for black money of politicians have been doing the rounds for years, no investigative agency has proved anything to this effect so far. Roy has said, on several occasions, that he has never paid nor received any money from the SP, though he concedes “respect” for Dhirubhai Ambani. (IE Photo) Read full story here.
