NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court refused both bail and parole to Subrata Roy- Indian businessman, founder and chairman of the Sahara India Pariwar- an Indian conglomerate with diversified ownership interests that includes London’s Grosvenor House, New York’s Plaza Hotel, Aamby Valley City and Force India. The apex court however, permitted the Sahara group to sell its three hotels in London and New York. The Court allowed the Sahara chief a few hours out of jail under police watch to negotiate the sale of three overseas hotels to raise Rs. 10,000 crore to refund his investors.
Roy had sought a 40-day parole to arrange the sale of the groups luxury hotels to generate Rs. 10,000 crore he needs to deposit with the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to get regular bail. The Court said, Roy could be brought out of jail and taken to a guest house in Delhi to carry out negotiations as and when a potential buyer came up with a concrete proposal for these assets.
Hindustan Times reports that this is the third time that the court has denied relief to the 65-year-old who has been lodged in Tihar since March 4 after the court initiated contempt proceedings against him for failing to comply with its order to refund Rs. 24,000 crore to depositors.
A special three-judge bench, headed by justice TS Thakur, said, “We will allow you to hold negotiations outside jail between 10am and 4pm under police custody. But, at this stage it’s premature to make such an arrangement as there is no concrete proposal.”
It asked Roy’s counsel to come back with a proposal. Sahara’s counsel Gaurav Kejriwal said the company’s lawyers would go through the order before proceeding further.
TOI reports that Sahara was allowed to sell nine properties in the country along with hotels Dream Downtown and The Plaza in New York and Londons famous Grosvenor House. Roys counsels had argued that negotiating with potential international buyers was tricky as well as complex which required Roy’s business acumen, and so he should be granted 40 days parole. But a bench of Justices T S Thakur, A R Dave and A K Sikri rejected the plea. It said as and when a proposal from a buyer came up, Roy could renew his plea for release on parole to conduct negotiations. For international buyers for hotels abroad, the bench said Roy could make use of video-conferencing facilities to hold negotiations. But the bench said whatever amounts were received by Sahara from sale of domestic and foreign assets would have to be deposited in the company’s separate account maintained by Sebi.
Sahara welcomed the court’s order removing the curbs on sale of overseas properties. “The proceeds raised from the foreign property sale would be paid to clear the loan with Bank of China, the details of which was submitted to court on 4th June ’14 and the rest of the amount will be deposited to Sebi,” said a company statement quoting its advocate Gaurav Bhatia.
Roy has been in detention since March 4 for the failure of two group companies – Sahara Housing and Sahara Real Estate- to return Rs 24,000 crore to nearly 3 crore investors through market regulator Sebi. The court had said Roy and two directors of the two companies would be released on interim bail if they deposited Rs 10,000 crore, half in cash and half through bank guarantee, with Sebi.
Pursuant to the order, Sahara cleaned up some of its bank accounts, sold shares and bonds and a property in Ahmedabad to deposit Rs 3,117 crore with Sebi. Through advocates Keshav Mohan and Gaurav Kejriwal, Sahara had promised to sell other properties and deposit the balance amount required for interim bail.
The release of Roy and two company directors is contingent on their paying Rs 5,000 crore to Sebi in cash and another Rs 5,000 crore as bank guarantees, to pay back depositors who allegedly haven’t been paid. While Sahara has maintained that there are no outstanding payments, the court has insisted that this amount be deposited with the stock market regulator Sebi. Sahara has said it has already paid Rs 3,117 crore and expects to pay the remaining amount after the sale of its overseas properties.
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