SonyLIV Pushes Ahead With 'Scam 2010: The Subrata Roy Saga' Despite Legal Threat From Sahara
Sony Pictures Networks India has confirmed it holds the rights to produce Scam 2010: The Subrata Roy Saga and says the series is now filming, more than two years after the company founded by the late Subrata Roy threatened legal action to stop it.
An SPNI representative told Deadline: "We have all the rights of the book in place [to produce the series]" (Deadline). SPNI Managing Director and CEO Gaurav Banerjee, speaking at a roundtable with journalists, responded "I believe so" when asked whether the legal dispute over the project had been resolved. He also revealed that the show had just started shooting.
The series is the third instalment in the Scam franchise, based on the book Sahara: The Untold Story by financial journalist Tamal Bandyopadhyay. Applause Entertainment and director Hansal Mehta, who made the previous two editions, returned to produce the third in association with Sony's Studio Next (Deadline). According to local reports, Siddharth Bodke plays Subrata Roy, with Kritika Singh, Moon Banerjee and Aditya Srivastava also cast.
Subrata Roy founded Sahara India Pariwar in 1978 and built it into a sprawling conglomerate with interests spanning finance, media and real estate. He died in 2023. His legal battles were among the most closely watched in Indian corporate history: Roy was held in a New Delhi prison on contempt-of-court charges and was required to post $1.6 billion in bail as part of the proceedings (Reuters).
Sahara India Pariwar had said it could take legal action over the series because a fictionalised account of events could affect its ongoing dispute with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), India's market regulator (Deadline). When the project was first announced in May 2024, Sahara Group condemned it as "abusive" and said it would pursue legal action against its makers (Firstpost). Author Bandyopadhyay had announced the collaboration on his official X account that same month (Hindustan Times).
A case filed by Sahara against the makers of Scam 2010 was still pending as of a Hindustan Times report in July 2026 (Hindustan Times). The status of that case at the time of Banerjee's comments on 10 August 2026 has not been separately confirmed beyond his statement that SPNI believes the legal issue is resolved.
For a streaming market where true-crime and financial-fraud dramas have become a dependable draw, a Scam franchise instalment carries built-in audience expectation. The first two editions dramatised major Indian financial scandals — the 1992 securities scam and the 2003 Abdul Karim Telgi stamp-fraud case — and both drew large viewership on SonyLIV. Whether the third edition navigates its legal headwinds cleanly, or whether Sahara escalates its challenge now that cameras are rolling, will shape the show's path to release.
No premiere date has been announced.
