Subrata Roy: Lord over a lost world
homemaker, a vegetable vendor or a faceless investor fronting for a money bag? When ET ran a story in 2012, an official from Sahara supremo Subrata Roy’s office in Lucknow called this reporter. ‘We want you to meet Kalawati.
We are sending you a ticket for tomorrow’s flight,’ the official said. When I asked in jest, ‘Would that be a one-way ticket?’ the man chuckled, ‘that’s up to you.’ The conversation ended abruptly, and I never boarded the flight.
Two years later, I met Roy in Delhi’s Tihar Jail after the group failed to deposit a large amount with the capital market regulator.
A smiling Roy, complete in his trademark Sahara black vest and dyed hair, sat in an armchair in a large window-less room, seemingly oblivious to the regulatory minefield he was treading. Following a tip that an army of Sahara agents, earlier on the rolls of the finance company, were raising money for a cooperative society that Sahara backed, I asked him if it was true that this little-known entity, which was under the ministry of agriculture and, thus, beyond the reach of RBI, mobilised as much as Rs 30,000 crore.
I thought Roy was cornered. But looking straight into my eyes, he said, ‘No, not 30,000, it’s 32,000 crore.’ It was surreal.
By then, RBI had dealt a death blow to his huge deposit-taking finance company, while another financial market regulator, Sebi, was taking him head-on, questioning the legality of fundraising by two other group companies he was betting on to make the kingdom bounce back.
