Why Supreme Court directed Sahara to pay ₹11 crore for Wayanad landslide relief

The Supreme Court on Tuesday imposed costs of ₹10 lakh each on Sahara Group's ten companies and ₹5 lakh each on top 20 directors of each of those companies for failure to comply with an order in a dispute with homebuyers [Deputy Chief Manager Worker and Anr.v Rajinder Kumar and Ors.].A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Sandeep Mehta directed the payment of the resultant ₹11 crore to Kerala Chief Minister's Relief Fund for the restoration of damages caused by the recent landslides in Wayanad."The petitioners were directed to furnish the details of top 50 Companies forming a part of the Sahara India Pariwar with the details of the top 20 Directors of each of the said 50 Companies. To set the ball rolling, this Court had directed that the details of the assets of 10 Group Companies and their top 20 Directors shall be furnished to this Court. Despite repeated opportunities granted to the petitioners to make compliances, the compliances have not been made. In view of the above, it is deemed appropriate to mulct 10 Group Companies to pay a cost of ₹10,00,000/- (Rupees Ten Lakhs only) for the repeated adjournments sought and the top 20 Directors of the 10 Group Companies to pay a cost of ₹5,00,000/- (Rupees Five Lakhs only) each for non-compliances of the orders passed by this Court," the Court ordered..In October 2023, the Court had directed the companies to furnish flats to certain buyers. In compliance, the flats were furnished to the buyers, however the condition of the same was not at all appropriate. In this regard, the Court had directed the directors of these group companies to file an affidavit disclosing their personal assets.During the hearing today, the court noted that despite six opportunities, the companies had failed to comply with the same and therefore, imposed ₹11 crore costs..Senior Advocate Siddhartha Dave and advocates Simranjeet Singh, Gautam Talukdar, Neha Gupta, Karan Jain, Rishabh Pant and Yajat Gulia appeared for Sahara.Advocates Siddharth Batra, Archna Yadav, Chinmay Dubey, Shivani Chawla, Rhythm Katyal and Pratyush Arora appeared for the homebuyers.Note: An initial version of story incorrectly stated that the costs imposed on Sahara was ₹2 crore. The error is regretted. .[Read Order]