The Supreme Court on Thursday warned Sahara chief Subrata Roy that he will be sent straight from the court to the Tihar Jail if he fails to abide by the undertaking given by him that he will deposit an instalment of Rs. 1500 crore in the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)-Sahara account by June 15, 2017.
Mr. Roy, who was present in the court, gave an undertaking to the court that he will pay a second instalment of Rs. 552 crore on July 15. He handed over two post-dated cheques for Rs. 1500 crore and Rs. 500 crore as proof of his bona fide.
He further filed an affidavit that he would pay a third installment of Rs. 3000 crore by October 2017.
In a thickly packed court, a Bench of Justices Dipak Misra, Ranjan Gogoi and A.K. Sikri called out to Mr. Roy sitting in the second row in the courtroom behind his battery of lawyers led by senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Salman Khurshid.
"Mr. Roy, so you don't intend to pay up?" Justice Misra asked Mr. Roy directly.
Up on his feet, Mr. Roy replied that "I am paying... I am committed".
"We are warning you, if the amounts don't come, we will send you to the Tihar Jail straight from right here, you understand?" Justice Misra cautioned him.
Mr. Roy was summoned after the court learnt in the previous hearing on April 17 that he had failed to live up to his assurance to pay a little over Rs. 5000 crore within the stipulated time fixed by the court.
According to the SEBI, Sahara owes its investors a total of Rs. 11,169 crore. The market regulator said the total principal amount was Rs. 25,781 crore and Rs. 14,612 crore, including interest, had been received so far.
In the last hearing, the court ordered that the Aamby Valley property to be auctioned and directed the Bombay High Court Official Liquidator to conduct a valuation of the asset located at Lonavala in Maharashtra.
The Official Liquidator, who was present in the court, handed over the property valuation report in a sealed cover, which was opened by the court. The valuation had fixed the offset reserve price for the property at Rs. 37,392 crore.
Despite Mr. Roy's undertaking to pay up by June, the court accepted amicus curiae and senior advocate Shekhar Naphade's advice that the auction process should nevertheless continue.
"Let him [Roy] try to pay the promised instalment in June, meanwhile let the pre-auction formalities not be stopped," Mr. Naphade submitted.
Accordingly, the court directed the Official Liquidator to get ready the drafts and records for the auction by June 19.
"By June 19, we will know whether his post-dated cheque for Rs. 1,500 crore has been honoured or not," Justice Misra observed.
The court ordered Mr. Roy also to be present in the court on June 19.
The Bench sent a Chennai based power of attorney holder of a United States based entity, which backed out of its offer to buy Sahara's Plaza Hotel, to a month's imprisonment in the Tihar Jail for contempt of court.
The court refused the entreaties of Prakash Swami, who was standing in the court, for clemency. The court found that he had not complied with its April 17 order to pay Rs. 10 crore as costs in his capacity as power of attorney holder for the aborted offer.
As Mr. Swami was led outside the courtroom by a police escort, Justice Misra turned to Mr. Roy, who was watching the proceedings, that this would happen to him if he did not pay up on time.
Published - April 27, 2017 03:29 pm IST
