In a major setback to Sahara chief Subrata Roy, the Supreme Court on Thursday decided to deny him bail till he furnished a fresh proposal for repayment of over Rs 22,500-crore.
Roy submitted a writ petition in the Supreme Court (SC) before the bench of Justices KS Radhakrishnan and JS Khehar claiming his detention in the case was illegal. Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani argued that the order failed to specify the offence and the period for which he was to remain in jail. Jethmalani sought the release of Roy and two other directors on a personal undertaking to be present on the next date of hearing, fixed for March 25.
The bench snubbed Jethmalani’s offer and reminded him how compassionate they had been in dealing with Roy, who was in contempt since November 2012 when he first failed to honour the deadline for repayment and later in February 2013, when the extension given by a three-judge bench expired.
The bench said: “The prayer made by Jethmalani for bail cannot be considered at this juncture, since no written proposal for payment in compliance with the directions issued by this court has been made so far.”
The petition by Roy attacked the SC decision of March 4 to be “erroneous” in procedure and substantive law. Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for the directors, argued that the court could not order arrest of Roy and the two directors when the directors were yet not heard in the contempt proceedings pending before the court. He even said that “willful disobedience”, a necessary ingredient to prove civil contempt, was not made out against Roy, who held negligible stake in his companies, or the two directors.
SEBI senior counsel Arvind Datar rebutted Roy’s petition and questioned the maintainability of the petition and said it should be dismissed with exemplary cost. He pointed out that if a man behaved in this manner by refusing to repeatedly comply with the court order, the court was within its power to order his arrest to enforce rule of law. The bench posted the matter on March 25 at the request of Jethmalani who could not complete his arguments.