The Supreme Court noted that embattled Sahara chief Subrata Roy has deposited Rs. 710.22 crore in the SEBI-Sahara account, but warned that its cheque of Rs. 552.21 crore must be realised within the July 15 deadline.
The apex court rejected Roy’s request to extend time beyond July 15 for realisation of this cheque. Roy had earlier told the court that he will pay Rs. 1,500 crore on or before June 15 and Rs. 552.22 crore exactly a month thereafter.
The apex court record shows that Sahara has deposited a total of Rs 1500.40 crore while Rs. 9,000 crore remains due on principal amount of Rs. 24,000 crore.
On 19 June, the Supreme Court had extended till 4 July the time for Subrata Roy to deposit Rs. 709.82 crore, out of Rs. 1,500 crore which was to be paid by 15 June, with a warning that failure to pay the remainder may again land him in jail.
In case of failure to honour the amount under the cheque, the court said that it would begin the process of auction of its Maharashtra property, Aambey Valley, which is on hold till now.
Meanwhile, capital markets regulator Sebi will e-auction a property owned by Sahara in Uttarakhand, for a total reserve price of little over Rs. 223 crore, on 28 July, as part of the process to recover funds from the beleaguered group.
Following directions from the Supreme Court for the sale of certain Sahara assets to recover money, Sebi has appointed SBI Capital Markets (SBI Caps) and HDFC Realty for auctioning various land parcels held by Sahara group.
It was further said that consequences for the Sahara chief, Subrata Roy would follow in case of dishonour of the cheque.
Kapil Sibal, counsel for Sahara prayed for extension of time as the company was facing difficulty with the sale of its properties.
“A total of Rs. 13,316 crore has been deposited towards due payment so far. We are trying our best and it is not our intention to not pay,” Sibal added.
Prior to this, the court was irked over non-submission of money and had decided to sell off Rs 34,000 crore worth of properties of the Sahara Group at the Aamby Valley.
Roy has spent almost two years in jail and been on parole since May 6 last year. The parole was granted the first time to enable him attend the funeral of his mother. It has been extended since then.
Besides Roy, two other directors — Ravi Shankar Dubey and Ashok Roy Choudhary — were arrested for failure of the group’s two companies — Sahara India Real Estate Corporation (SIRECL) and Sahara Housing Investment Corp Ltd (SHICL) — to comply with the court’s August 31, 2012 order to return Rs 24,000 crore to their investors. Director Vandana Bhargava was not taken into custody.
