On Wednesday, the Supreme Court granted the Centre’s request to allocate Rs 5,000 crore out of the Rs 24,000 crore deposited by Sahara Group with market regulator Sebi to repay its depositors.

The direction was issued under an application filed by the Centre in PIL by Pinak Pani Mohanty seeking instructions to pay the amount to depositors invested in several checking fund companies and Sahara Credit Corporation.

A bench of Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar said the payments should have been made to depositors who the Saharan cooperative group had cheated.

The bench said it would oversee the entire process for former Supreme Court Justice R Subhash Reddy.

The Centre had sought funds from investors in the SEBI-Sahara Sahara-Sebi escrow account set up after the Supreme Court had directed two Sahara companies, Sahara India Real Estate Limited (SIRECL) and Sahara Housing India Limited (SHICL), in August 2012 to refund investors.