Supreme Court puts off hearing, Sahara chief Subrata Roy’s jail stay gets longer

NEW DELHI: After sending Sahara group chairman Subrata Roy to jail in judicial custody a week ago, the Supreme Court on Monday cancelled its scheduled hearing on Tuesday on compliance of its order asking two Sahara companies to refund Rs 20,000 crore to investors through market regulator Sebi.

Having paid a little over Rs 5,000 crore, Roy had come up with a proposal for staggered payment of Rs 17,000 crore within a year. But the court on Friday rejected the proposal terming it as "waste of court's time". This had forced the group to work on an alternative proposal for presentation before the court on Tuesday.

The case was shown to be listed for hearing at 2 pm on Tuesday in the main list of business, which was issued by the court registry on March 8. However, the supplementary list of business issued for Tuesday said the matter, which was scheduled to be listed before a bench of Justice KS Radhakrishnan and Justice JS Khehar, "stands deleted as the same is adjourned".

The unexpected development left the Sahara camp and its lawyers perplexed and searching for a way out. Some felt the group must protest deletion of the matter as the case needed urgent hearing given Roy's detention without a judicial determination of his guilt in the contempt case pending against him.

But other lawyers proposed that it would be better to draft a judicially acceptable repayment plan to appeal for mercy from the court. As the two groups huddled to burn the midnight oil, the final shape of the proposal, if any, would emerge only on Tuesday.

The bench had on August 31, 2012 directed Sahara Housing and Sahara Real Estate to refund Rs 24,000 crore with interest in three months to nearly 3 crore investors through Sebi.

The Sahara firms had deposited Rs 5,120 crore claiming that the total outstanding for repayment was a little over Rs 2,000 crore. It did not pay up despite repeated reminders from the court, including initiation of contempt proceedings against Roy and three directors of the two Sahara firms.

On March 4, the bench had rejected the proposal of Roy, who was arrested and produced by UP police pursuant to the court's non-bailable arrest warrant, to repay outstanding amount through sale of assets and bank guarantee. It had then ordered his detention in judicial custody in Delhi.

On March 7, the Sahara group had submitted a staggered payment plan starting with upfront deposit of Rs 2,000 crore. But it did not meet with the court's approval.