The Securities Appellate Tribunal, SAT, today dismissed an appeal by two Sahara group firms against SEBI in the case involving refund of about 24,000 crore rupees with interest to about 3 crore investors. Sahara firms in their appeal had sought the tribunal's intervention in refund of investors' money and had accused the market regulator Sebi of wrongly charging them of non- compliance with a Supreme Court order in this regard. The tribunal, however, said that any further direction in the case can be sought for and granted by the Supreme Court alone and dismissed the appeal.

Passing the order on the appeal filed on November 27, SAT observed that a contempt petition filed by the respondent Board (Securities and Exchange Board of India) and a review petition filed by Sahara group firms against the order .

The Apex Court had asked these companies to furnish the documents related to these investors to Sebi within 10 days and refund the money within three months, failing which the regulator was asked to freeze the accounts and attach properties of the two firms.