Will Sudipto Sen’s movie on Sahara chief Subrata Roy have these five things from his real life?

Director Sudipto Sen, who is riding high on the phenomenal success of his latest movie The Kerala Story, has announced a biopic on Sahara chief, Subrata Roy, titled Saharashri. The story of the movie is written by Sen, Rishi Virmani and Sandeep Singh. The music would be composed by AR Rahman.

The life of Subrata Roy is without a doubt a tale worth telling. Roy doesn't come from a family of billionaires. Instead, he comes from a humble background and started his career by selling salted snacks on his scooter. 

In 1978, he started his chit-fund business which took off and the rest his history. Within 20 years, he was one of India’s biggest business tycoons and the head of Sahara India Pariwar. 

At one point he rubbed shoulders with Chief Ministers and Prime Ministers. But then Roy's downfall started from the legal and regulatory issues surrounding the Sahara Group and its financial dealings. He was also accused by finance regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) of not being transparent about his business deals and was asied to pay back the investors.

We do not know whether the biopic on Roy would be whitewashing his image or if it would also dwell on the aspects of his life which have been controversial.

Here are five things we expect Sudipto Sen to show in his biopic on Sahara chief:

1. Subrata Roy's brush with the SEBI: Roy was like a savior for many in the 1980s and 90s when there weren’t too many banks and people didn’t know where and how to invest their money and get good return. Roy instilled confidence among these people from marginalized backgrounds by letting them deposit money in his business and giving them good returns.

Many people for decades attained monetary gains from it. However, when Roy had decided to go public to raise funds for his company, India’s finance regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) turned things sour for him.

SEBI looked at the finance structure of the Sahara company and it said that Roy wasn’t using the right policies while raising funds. “It appears he is not transparent about who his investors are,” James Crabtree, author of The Billionaire Raj, quoted SEBI as saying in the Netflix documentary Bad Boys Billionaire: India.  

In November 2010, SEBI barred two of Sahara Parivar Companies, Sahara India Real Estate Corp (SIREC) and Sahara Housing Investment Corp (SHIC) from raising money from the public as they had raised several thousands crores through Optionally Fully Convertible Debentures(OFCDs) that SEBI deemed illegal.

Then in June 2011, SEBI immediately ordered Sahara to fully refund the investors money which they had raised through OFCDs. In August 2012, SC directed SIRECL and SHIC to fully refund over Rs 24,400 crore to its investors. In 2014, Subrata Roy was jailed for failing to appear in the court.

2. Black ink thrown at Roy: When Roy arrived at the Supreme Court in 2014 for a hearing, black ink was thrown on his face by a lawyer who later accused him of cheating the poor.

It was a time when the businesman's image had been hit hard and he had was accused of cheating the people.

Supreme Court had accused Sahara of raising $3.5 billion illegally. SEBI had asked Roy to pay back the investors with an interest of 15%. When he failed to do so, in 2014, the court sent him to Tihar jail where he stayed for nearly two years.

3. Roy goes to court to get a ban on Netflix series episode on his life: In August 2020, two petitions were filed at a Bihar district court by the Sahara group over the Netflix documentary Bad Boys Billionaire: India, which featured an episode on Subrata Roy, as one of the businessmen who was accused of cheating his investors.

The district court had passed an interim stay order against the release of the Netflix documentary. However, two months later, the court lifted the injunction on the documentary and it was finally released on October 5, 2022. 

The documentary portrayed Roy as a greedy business tycoon who had built his business empire from the money of poor people.

4. Subrata Roy asks Sourav Ganguly to lead his IPL team: Apart from business, the “Sahara Shree” chief also had a profound interest in cricket. The Sahara Group sponsored the Indian cricket team for 11 years before withdrawing in 2012. 

Not many know that when Subrato Roy’s IPL team Pune Warriors India (PWI) fared badly in its inaugural season in 2011, during the next season, Roy decided to change the captain. 

He had himself asked Ganguly to lead the side. This was revealed by Ganguly in his autobiography A Century is not Enough.

“I got a call from Saharashri Subrata Roy to come and meet him in Delhi. I went on a Sunday. He got to the point rather quickly. ‘Sourav, I have decided, you will be our captain this season.’

Ganguly said that he was surprised over Roy’s captaincy call and he felt pity for Yuvraj who just had a one poor season as a skipper and had lost his captaincy. He had a word with Yuvraj outside Roy’s office and only after discussing this with Singh, did Ganguly accept Roy’s offer.

5. Sold his wife’s jewellery to set up his business: Roy also struggled for funds in the initial phase of his business. He started his chit-fund business in 1978 and though it kicked off, he didn't have money to invest.

Not many know that Roy also had to mortgage his wife’s jewellery to support his business then. The business tycoon had admitted this in an interview with Simi Garewal on her show Rendezvous with Simi Garewal. He said that since then, he has been gifting his wife jewellery on her birthday. 

So, be it cricket, politics or business, Subrata Roy called the shots as he wished. The business giant was named among the top ten most powerful people in India by the India Today magazine in 2010. In 2004, the TIME magazine termed Sahara Group as the second largest employer in India after the Indian railways. His life, no matter how controversial, deserves a cinematic experience.