Sahara Founder Subrata Roy Passes Away at 75

Mumbai: Sahara Group founder and Chairman Subrata Roy breathed his last on Wednesday at a Mumbai hospital after a prolonged illness. He was 75.

Sahara in a statement said Subrata Roy died of a cardiorespiratory arrest following an extended battle with complications arising from metastatic malignancy, hypertension, and diabetes. He was admitted to Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital and Medical Research Institute in Mumbai on Sunday.

He is survived by his wife Swapna Roy and two sons, Sushanto Roy and Seemanto Roy, who live abroad.

Born in Bihar’s Araria in 1948, Subrata Roy started the Sahara India Pariwar in 1978 with a capital of only Rs 2,000.

His family later moved to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and Subrata Roy made Lucknow the headquarter of his group in the 1990s.  and made the city the headquarters of his group.

In 2012, what began with the Supreme Court ruling as illegal an investor scheme by Sahara quickly grew into a massive controversy. The SEBI and the Himachal Pradesh High Court asking the Enforcement Directorate to look into alleged money laundering by the Sahara group.

In 2023 a website was opened where depositors of the Sahara Group of Cooperative Societies can claim their refund in 45 days, was launched following a Supreme Court order in March that said Rs 5,000 crore should be transferred from the “Sahara-SEBI Refund Account” to CRCS to depositors invested in the Sahara Cooperative Societies.