New bench to hear Sahara case

A newly-constituted bench of Justices T S Thakur and A K Sikri would now hear the Sahara contempt case on Monday which involves the group chief Subrata Roy and others.

Chief Justice of India R M Lodha set up the new bench days after Justice J S Khehar recused himself from the case and fellow senior judge Justice K S Radhakrishnan retired.

The bench had on March 4 sent Sahara chief Roy and two other directors to jail for failing to pay back Rs 20,000 crore to investors of its two firms. On May 6, ruling on a writ petition filed by Roy challenging the order, the same bench had refused to recuse, saying, “Calculated psychological offensives and mind games adopted to seek recusal of judges, need to be strongly repulsed.”

Notably, senior advocate Ram Jethamalani, during the argument, had suggested the bench to recuse from hearing the case because his client had apprehensions of prejudice.
The new bench would hear the matter on May 19.