Meet Pinak Mohanty, whose Supreme Court case got Rs 5,000 crore for investors of Sahara’s society

In a landmark decision on March 29, 2023, the Supreme Court ordered the transfer of Rs 5,000 crore from the Sebi-Sahara refund account for the compensation of depositors in four Sahara cooperative societies, Sahara Credit Cooperative Society, Humara India Credit Cooperative Society, Saharayn Universal Multipurpose Society, and Stars Multipurpose Cooperative Society. This decision was made in a public interest lawsuit brought by Cuttack-based Pinak Pani Mohanty.

Sebi established this account to receive the Rs 25,781 crore that two Sahara Group companies were required to refund. The two had issued optionally entirely convertible bonds in order to illegitimately raise money. The Central Registrar will conclude the reimbursement method in nine months under the direction of retired judge R Subhash Reddy, who was appointed by the Supreme Court, and with the aid of attorney Gaurav Agarwal.

The bench ruled that Justice R Subhash Reddy, a former judge of this court, and Gaurav Agarwal, a knowledgeable amicus curiae, should each receive Rs. 15 lakhs per month as part of their honoraria. Justices CT Ravikumar and MR Shah's bench made the observation that the money was sitting in the "Sahara-SEBI Refund Account" unused.

Who is Pinak Pani Mohanty?

Since 2014–2015, Mohanty has been paying close attention to the struggles faced by investors in phoney investment schemes. He claims to be in the business of supplying potato chips to Cuttack. It has not been simple for a man who claims to earn about Rs 3.15 lakh annually to make the route to SC. According to him, the overall expenses to date total more than Rs 4,80,000, as reported by Economic Times reported.

Since 2015, Mohanty and his social work colleagues have worked to secure repayment for the 44 companies' victims. These businesses go by names like Saradha, Rose Valley, and Seashore. In 2015, the managing director of Seashore, Prashant Dash, claimed that 47 members of the ruling party had stolen 550 crore from Seashore.

Mohanty had provided the CBI with the audio. Recalling his "sting operation," Mohanty said that several of the participants had been detained. Mohanty complained in a letter to the prime minister during the COVID-19 lockdown that despite years of investigations, the working class and the poor continue to suffer and commit suicide. The PMO sent this letter to the chief secretary of Odisha in January 2022.

This was Mohanty's driving force behind his early-2022 appeal to the Supreme Court. His main request was the creation of a single judge or committee that would be responsible for "securing the captured hard-earned assets and money of investors by the CBI, ED, State of Odisha, CB of Odisha, OPID special court, Sebi, and other state and central agencies and paying off the money to the investors.

His second request was to order CBI & ED to compile a final report on the 44 other businesses. The final was "to order the CBI to probe" the four cooperative societies.

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(With inputs from PTI)