New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said there is a need to resolve the dispute over the total amount which Sahara Group was liable to pay to its investors even if the group complied with the condition of paying Rs 10,000 crore to ensure the release of its chief Subrato Roy from jail.
The court will hear Sahara’s new bail proposal on Thursday, the Sahara lawyer told news agency Reuters. “All the formalities for the bail bond would be completed before Thursday,” he said declining to be named. A Sahara spokesman did not return calls seeking details. Gautam Awasthi, another lawyer for Sahara, said in a statement on behalf of the company that the SC would hear the case on Thursday.
The SC in March allowed Sahara three more months to raise cash for the bail money. It has warned it could ask a receiver to auction Sahara’s assets if the Group fails to raise bail. The SC said on Friday that there is a need to resolve the dispute over the total amount which Sahara is liable to pay to its investors even if the Group complies with the condition of paying Rs 10,000 crore to ensure Roy’s bail.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) accepted the draft of bank guarantees which the Sahara Group has to furnish which was also approved by the SC on Friday. The issue of payment of balance amount arose as the claim of Sahara refunding the amount has been disputed by Sebi with its senior counsel Arvind Dattar maintaining that there have been contradictions on refund theory by Sahara and even the apex court in the past had not agreed to it.
Dattar said there is also a need for fixing the schedule for Sahara to refund the remaining amount after complying with the amount of bail condition. The Bench agreed with the submission and said that bank guarantees would be made encashable by Sebi if Sahara is unable to pay the balance amount.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Sahara, asked the Bench, Sebi and senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, assisting the court as amicus curiae, in the matter to accept the draft of the bank guarantees which would be from a scheduled bank. Sibal did not disclose the name of the bank but assured that it is not any of the cooperative banks.
The court had also extended its August 1, 2014 order allowing Roy to use the conference room in Tihar jail complex to hold negotiations with potential buyers to sell his three luxury hotels–Dream Downtown and The Plaza in New York and Grosvenor House in London–to raise Rs 10,000 crore to get regular bail.
Bureau Report
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