New Delhi– Sahara Chief Subrata Roy will continue to remain on parole as Supreme Court on Monday asked him to deposit Rs 600 crore by February 6 next year as the group submitted the road map for returning Rs 11,036 crores in next two and half years.
Asking Sahara to deposit Rs 600 crore, the bench of Chief Justice T.S.Thakur, Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice A.K.Sikri asked why don’t they reverse the road map to start depositing Rs 1,000 crore per month for refunding Rs 24,000 crore of more than three crore investors.
Besides Ray, the parole of his son-in-law Ashok Roy Choudhary and Sahara’s Director Ravi Shankar Dubey too has been extended.
Sahara group’s two companies – Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Ltd (SIRECL) and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Ltd (SHICL) — had raised the money, through optionally fully convertible debenture, from about 3.3 crore investors in 2008 and 2009.
The apex court by its August 31, 2012 order directed the SIRECL and SHICL to return the investors’ Rs 17,600 crore with 15 per cent interest.
Perusing the road map for depositing money in SEBI Sahara Refund account for returning investors money by the market regulator, Justice Gogoi said: “If you don’t do it we will seriously consider appointing a receiver …”
The court was told that Sahara has deposited Rs 1,200 crore ever since Roy was released on parole on May 6 to perform the last rites of his mother. Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for Roy, told the court that so far they have deposited Rs 11,000 crore with the market regulator and there is a balance of Rs 11036 crore.
However, Sibal told the court that Sebi put the balance figures at Rs 14,000 crore.
As he tried to suggest that some of the properties auctioned by the market regulator were at a low price and could have been sold at a higher price, the bench observed: “(Every time) either you come saying they (Sebi) are selling dirt cheap or someone else comes offering higher price and it continue like that.
“We have not restrained you from creating assets, we have restrained you from alienating them”, the court observed as Sibal said that their “hands were tied” and even they wanted, they can’t do anything.
Sibal had expressed the haplessness of Sahara group as a lawyer told the court that her client has deposited the money for a flat in one of its housing projects but there was nothing on the ground.
The next hearing is on February 6.
