The Supreme Court on Friday released Sahara chief Subrata Roy on parole for four weeks to attend rituals and perform last rites of his mother Chhabi Roy, who died early morning on Friday in Lucknow.
It also allowed the release of Roy’s brother-in-law and one of the directors of Sahara Ashok Roy Choudhary to attend to cremation rites of his mother-in-law.
A bench comprising Chief Justice T S Thakur and justices A R Dave and A K Sikri allowed release of Roy and Choudhary subject to various conditions including the applicants will be escorted by a team of police officials in plain clothes. It also said that Roy would be under the protective custody of the police “since the investors can go to any extent to get their money back.”
The apex court further said that the police team shall lodge the applicants back in Tihar jail after the four-week period is over and also recorded Sahara senior counsel Kapil Sibal’s assurance that there would not be any “attempt to escape”.
However, it rejected Sibal’s plea to allow Roy to be in the custody of Uttar Pradesh police rather than Delhi police.
Chabbi Roy, 95, passed away in Lucknow, after a prolonged illness, a Sahara release in the morning said.
Roy and two other directors of Sahara companies – Ravi Shankar Dubey and Choudhary are in judicial custody since March 4, 2014 for the failure of their two firms to comply with apex court’s August 31, 2012 and December 5, 2012, order to return investors money. The apex court in 2014 had set the bail amount at an unprecedented Rs 10,000 crore— half in cash and half as a bank guarantee.
Roy’s release came a day after Sebi had opposed his application for release on parole against the collateral of land worth over Rs 6,000 crore. It wanted the 67 properties, which have been put on sale by Sebi, to be taken as collateral instead of bank guarantee.
Roy and the two directors of the Sahara -Choudhary and Ravi Shankar Dubey – were lodged in Tihar jail in March 2014 for not complying with the apex court’s orders relating to refund of money raised by two group firms. The court had ordered Sahara India Real Estate Corp and Sahara Housing Invest Corp to deposit with Sebi, a sum of over R24,029 crore raised from some 29.6 million bondholders, along with interest of 15 per cent.
Last month, Sebi has directed Sahara to submit the list of all its properties, which, according to the group’s own estimates are worth over Rs 1.87 lakh crore. The matter was scheduled to be heard on May 11.
