The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to grant more time to the Sahara chief Subrata Roy to pay Rs. 600 crore.
“If Sahara Chief does not pay the amount by Feb 6, he shall commit himself to jail,” the apex court said.
A Bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justices Ranjan Gogoi and A.K. Sikri, on November 28, 2016, asked Mr. Roy’s lawyers to pay Rs. 600 crore by February 6, 2017, as the court did not want to send a person back to prison.
Mr. Roy is out on parole after spending about two years in the Tihar Jail, unable to garner bail for allegedly duping his investors. Roy who has been out on bail since May 5 last year after his mother passed away,
Roy, while responding to the Supreme Court, cited the government’s demonetization move and a slowdown in the economic growth as grounds for seeking an extension to deposit Rs. 600 crore.
Sahara’s lawyer Kapil Sibal had contended that absconding industrialist Vijay Mallya took Rs 6,500 crore from banks and is “enjoying” whereas Sahara didn’t take even a single rupee from banks.
Roy was arrested in March 2014 after Sahara failed to comply with a court order to refund the money raised from millions of small investors who were sold bonds later ruled to be illegal.
