The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to give conditional bail to Sahara chief Subrata Roy if he furnished within a day Rs 5,000 crore in cash and another Rs 5,000 crore as bank guarantee payable to SEBI.
The counsel appearing for Sahara sought time till Thursday to seek instruction although he tried his best to convince the Supreme Court (SC) to reduce the upfront cash component to Rs 2,500 crore.
Rejecting the new offer by Sahara promising to repay Rs 20,000 crore, of which the initial deposit of Rs 2,500 crore will come within three days of defreezing of bank accounts, the bench of Justices KS Radhakrishnan and JS Khehar said the court was inclined to release the contemnors, Roy and two of his directors, on interim bail.
The SC held that on payment of Rs 10,000-crore, the contemnors will be released forthwith. It clarified, that the above payment would facilitate Roy to come out of jail in order to arrange the remaining amount of money to be paid to SEBI.
“We make it clear that this order is passed in order to facilitate the contemnors to further raise the balance amount so as to comply with the court’s orders,” the bench said. Roy has been in prison since March 4 following his inability to repay the money despite several opportunities given by SC.