Market watchdog Securities and Exchange Board of India, SEBI, today cautioned the investors and general public against transacting with two Sahara group firms, Sahara India Real Estate Corp Ltd, Sahara Housing Investment Corp Ltd and their three promoters and directors.

The regulator said that in furtherance to a Supreme Court order directing refund of investors' money collected by these Sahara firms, it has ordered attachment of all moveable and immoveable properties, bank accounts and demat accounts of these two companies and that of its promoters and directors namely Subrata Roy Sahara, Vandana Bhargava, Ashok Roy Choudhary and Ravi Shankar Dubey.

On February 13th, Sebi passed two separate orders, together running into 160 pages, directing attachment of properties and freezing of accounts.

It was after the Supreme Court said that the regulator was free to freeze the accounts and attach properties if Sahara firms were not complying with the apex court's earlier orders
of August 2012 towards refund of investors' money totalling over 24,000 crore rupees.

The assets ordered to be attached included those relatedto the group's Aambey Valley resort town near Pune, other real estate assets in Delhi, Mumbai and at other places across the country, shares, mutual funds and various other investments.

The Supreme Court on August 31st, 2012 had asked Sahara group firms to refund the money with 15 per cent interest and had asked Sebi to facilitate the refund.